Category: dad

A few favorite photos from Washington DC today

dad, science, travel

Here are a few of my favorite photos I snapped today in Washington D.C. with Alexander. I added all of these to my NECC 2009 Flickr Set.

Alexander on the Mall

At the Smithsonian Natural History Museum

Alexander and Dad by the Apollo Capsule

This is the first time I’ve seen a Tomahawk cruise missile up close.

The Tomahawk Cruise Missile

We were able to not only see but also TOUCH several enormous meteorites today at the Smithsonian Natural History museum, including this one from Arizona:

A meteorite from Arizona

The exhibit on the Mishin diaries and the light they shed on the Soviet moon landing plans was very interesting to me

The Mishin Diaries shed light on Soviet moon landing plans

This was the “designed but never used” Soviet cosmonaut moon suit:

The designed but never used Soviet cosmonaut moon suit

The Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) exhibit was definitely the highlight of the day for me.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum

I incorrectly called these “unarmed aerial vehicles” near the end of the video sequence I recorded at the exhibit today. These are definitely NOT “unarmed.”

Technorati Tags:
, , , , , , , , , ,

2 comments

Travian sitting report

brother, dad, games

My week of “sitting” for Alexander’s Travian account is officially over. These were the results:

Travian Post-Summer Camp Report

This was what Alexander asked me to do:

Travian Strategy

Overall his village sustained 9 attacks, and I think on 3 of those occasions the attacker got resources. That was one of the reasons I build up a 2nd cranny to level 9. (The cranny protects your resources when attackers come.)

Hopefully he’ll be pleased with the results. His field production levels are a lot higher than they were a week ago.

Travian Status

Alexander, why don’t you write a “report card” on how things went when I sat for you in Travian, and post it here as a blog entry? I did add your Travian share link to the top of my blog at the start of the week, so be sure to check your “earn gold” link under Travian Plus. 🙂

Technorati Tags:
, , ,

Leave a comment

Crosspost – Help Needed! WordPress commenting isn’t working (WordPress database error Duplicate entry)

dad

Ah, these are the moments I wish I had my own IT staff. If you’re a WordPress or mySQL guru perhaps you can help me!

I am running WordPress on my main blog (“Moving at the Speed of Creativity”) and the blog has stopped accepting comments for some reason, as of Monday night (April 27, 2009) around 8 pm CST. That’s when my last comment came in successfully. I can post new entries to the blog, but no new comments can be received. I’m running WP 2.7.1. I haven’t installed or updating the blog or plug-ins lately, so I don’t think the source is a recent change I’ve made. I tried disabling all plug-ins except Akismet, but the error persisted. I think the problem is in my mySQL database. 🙁

I checked my WordPress directory error_log file and this is the last entry. It is a “WordPress database error Duplicate entry” message:

Wordpress comment error

The other strange symptom is that in my WordPress dashboard, it shows that I don’t have any comments on my blog, even though there are almost 7000 approved.

Wordpress comment mySQL error

The comments are still there, when I click the “comments” sidebar link they show up. Something is messed up with the auto-incrementing and I think it needs to be reset in mySQL. I’ve never done that, however.

I did a full mySQL database backup using phpMyAdmin. I considered reinstalling WordPress 2.7.1, but since this appears to be a mySQL problem I don’t think that would help. I haven’t (to date) done a good job monitoring and managing my error and access logs, and I’ve got some other issues and problems that it looks like I need to fix. (Some big ones with PodPress.) Overall I know I need to clean up my mySQL database, but never having done that before I am not sure where to begin. At least I have a new backup, I know that’s always a good idea…

Do you have any suggestions or tips for me that could help? Since my blog isn’t accepting comments (isn’t that ironic) I’ve cross-posted this to our Learning Signs blog (where commenting is working) or you can Tweet me an idea or link as an @reply or direct message.

Many, many thanks. Yuk. I really don’t like technical glitches like this which can often consume LARGE amounts of troubleshooting time.

Technorati Tags:
, , , ,

3 comments

KidZui browser

dad, technology

I’ve just discovered the KidZui browser. It looks pretty cool, you create a unique account and can login to access games, videos, and lots of other “kid friendly” stuff. I’d like you to both check it out and let me know what you think and find by writing a blog post about it here. I’ve created an account for you both, ask me and I’ll tell you your login credentials. (Hint: Your userids are the same ones you’re using for our blog. Rachel’s is the same as she’s using for Club Penguin. Everyone’s password is the same as Rachel’s Club Penguin password.) I’ve downloaded the program already on my laptop, we’ll need to download and install it on other computers too.

Have fun!

One comment

Videos of the Rangitata Valley and Mt Sunday

dad, travel

Yesterday I visited Mt Sunday in New Zealand, which was the set for Edoras in the film trilogy “The Lord of the Rings.” This is one video in a series I took yesterday and uploaded to Flickr.

Read more about this on my main blog post “Erewhon, Mt Sunday (Edoras) and the Rangitata Valley.” More photos are available on my Flickr set “Edoras and Erewhon.” I have ten more videos from yesterday to still upload and will add them to my New Zealand video Flickr set soon. In all I had over 400 MB of videos to upload last night (which I left going as I slept) and I think that really taxed Shirley’s ADSL connection! 🙂

Technorati Tags:
, , , ,

Leave a comment

NZ Travel Update: LAX

dad, travel

I recorded another short archived webcast via Qik this evening in the LAX airport enroute to the 2009 Learning at School conference in Rotorua, New Zealand. I posted my first “in airport” video update over on my main blog, but since updates like this one may bore readers to that blog looking for educational technology related posts I thought I’d post here on Learning Signs instead.

Our flight for Auckland boards in just a few minutes. In another 10 or so hours, I should be in New Zealand!

Technorati Tags:
, , ,

One comment

A nightly spelling bee for Dad

brother, dad

I’m glad Alexander is in the midst of a writing assignment for school, but I honestly feel like I’m having to compete in a nightly spelling bee with all the words I’m being asked to spell now in the evenings.

spelling test
Creative Commons License photo credit: elginwx

It has been abundantly clear to me for several years that Alexander has similar spelling abilities to his mother: Spelling is very challenging for him. I think this stems from him not being as visually oriented in his natural learning style. I am a pretty decent speller, and I think that has a lot to do with my ability to visualize words. Even when he is asking me to spell words for his writing assignment, I have to visualize them in my mind to spell them aloud. I MUCH prefer to write down a word than to spell it out loud. Really, spelling bees are such a DUMB idea, I wish they were not so common in schools. The ability to verbally spell a word upon command is not an important “life skill.” Of course it is important to write well with correct spelling, but being able to do that is very different from being able to succeed at oral spelling exercises.

Technorati Tags:
, , , ,

2 comments

Favorite Halloween Photos

dad

We had a great Halloween party at home this evening with neighbors and friends, and enjoyed the lovely cool (but not cold) fall weather which was perfect for evening trick-or-treating. Here are a few of my favorite photos from the evening.

Brother and his flashlight in the yard after trick-or-treating:
Night silhouette

Mom getting our little witch’s hair ready for the night!
DSC01844

Part of our crew of trick-or-treaters!
DSC01879

The jack-o-latern Trista and I made together:
The pumpkin Trista and I made together

Little sister and her friend visiting with grandparents in Texas over Skype early in the evening, before we left for trick-or-treating:
Videoconferencing over skype with grandparents

Technorati Tags:
, , , , , ,

Leave a comment

Now is the time to invest

dad

I am not a financial expert, but what I do know tells me now is the time to invest in stocks. As panicked people flee the market, opportunities open for others. My stock recommendation today is Chesapeake Energy.

Natural gas power will be a big part of our energy future in the next 20-30 years, before hydrogen power becomes ubiquitous.

Here is an iPhone screen snap of CHP today.

One comment
1 … 3 4 5 6