06.30.07
Temptation
Right now I sit in Sin City, aka Las Vegas, airport. I am looking out towards the bright lights of the casino hotels and imagine what is going on the strip right now. Probably just a bunch of memories that people will never forget or will hope to forget. Sounds pretty normal for any life experience. This is my first time being here among the 24 hour city of impulse sin. Who ever thought of putting these gambling machines in this airport is a genius. I mean who can resist the temptation? Thank the all mighty who ever that I have earphones. I would either go spend all of my money gambling or go crazy, maybe both, if I had to listen to that music, as I sit here for two hours waiting for my flight. Actually, I would love to just fall asleep and dream about my lovely wife. But I am afraid that I would wake up, only to discover that I missed my flight. It just turned two o’clock am in NC. April will be picking me up in six hours. I cannot wait to see my wife and son! Well, enough of this rambling. I am only typing to stay awake. But maybe I should erase this; they say what goes on in Vegas, stay in Vegas. Opps! 
06.27.07
Who is your pusher?
Another beautiful day in California! The conference has been a mixture of charted and uncharted waters. First, I have been using the teaching method, (Inquiry Based Learning), for a year now but it has been more of half way of implementation. Here I am learning the techniques to go the extra length so that my teaching is a 100% IBL class. This means that the students are not given a textbook and they are given guides to discover and create the reasoning behind the mathematics. Now even though I am half way there, I would have to say that the next half is the most challenging. How true this is for a lot of things in my life; I will take a task all the way to a point where it does not require full commitment. With some things I have made a whole hearted commitment such as my marriage and my teaching. However, too often taking the last steps seem to be too much of a risk. Perhaps, I cannot even say that I see it as a risk. I mostly view the opportunity of going all in with a task as a chance of failure. This philosophy of just worrying about the results, is some thing I try to bring awareness to my students. I try to teach my students that those who are talking about math don’t have to be the ones with the answers. Communicating about mathematics can be about sharing ideas; the judgement of right and wrong can be assessed later. Sure, this is easy for me to preach since I have a strong self-confidence in mathematics. Place me in an arena where my confidence is low, I quickly stay where I am and become satisfied where I am. I think this is how my students feel with mathematics and changing this perspective can be difficult. One may need a stronger confidence to grow outside of their boundaries, but the confidence can only grow through the experience of stepping outside of their boundaries. Thus, nothing changes, or in other words, I stay at using 50% of my potential. Maybe the only way to transform from the cycle is to be pushed out. That is how I feel about this workshop. It is pushing just enough to move me away from my balance causing me to stumble a bit but I can regain my position. Sort of like being pushed out a nest; I may know that I have the skills to fly but I do not have the determination or confidence to actually do it.
Well that was a long winded reflection. I would say that I hope that your job is as much rewarding for you as it for me, but if it just serves as a bill payer than so be it. Life is….what is life? Exactly. Life is? Life is a question. But that is an answer. Just more pointless rambling.
06.26.07
West Coast Love
So, I am here courtesy of being someone who teaches math. Nothing like taking advantage of who you are. The trip is pretty much an all expense paid trip, and I am trying to soak up all I can get. First, the hotel is like million dollar luxury. The service and food is a combination that I would only expect to have if I was at some resort. For instance, the food that we are given is buffet style with a fine cuisine twist. It is not like having a smorgasbord of chicken tenders, mashed potatoes, and ice burg lettuce. Rather, we are served a lunch that consists of gorgeous leafy salads, fresh fruit, pork tenderloins, squash medley, chicken parm, garlic bread, soup, and cheese cake. On top of that, the dining was pond side next to some large trees. Boy, was it great to be a mathematician in Orange County on this day. Enough of the food advantages, time to report about the actual workshop. It is super! I was able to discuss in depth about teaching mathematics and begin developing materials for my next semester courses. Nobody has rented a car that is here at the workshop, but I hope to get out and play some disc golf in the area. Yes, it is a priority; California has some the nicer courses in America. So, I am off to do homework and continue taking advantage of this place. May you do the same.
06.22.07
Charlie’s Take over
Charlie has officially taken over our living area. During the first month of his arrival, his bouncy chair was the only thing in our living room. Now we have a bouncy chair plus a swing, a play pen, a high chair, a bombo chair, jungle gym, basket of toys, tickle me Elmo, and a jumper thingy. That is quite an increase over the past four months. The amazing part is that we have not had to pay for any of it, which is true for about 95% of Charlie’s belongings. Friends and family have been extremely generous. Basically, April and I have only had to buy some diapers and formula. Speaking of formula, we had a big tub of formula one time over at April’s mom’s house. But then we found the dog eating the whole entire tub. It is was pretty funny and the dog was okay, probably because he eats anything that is close to the floor including toilet paper, glasses, and clothes. Back to Charlie. We have begun to feed him rice cereal three times a day. The rice cereal is not that much, just a couple of tablespoons. So we still feed him the bottle, which ranges from 6 to 8 oz of formula. He has been doing a great job with the food transition. Soon I will be able to start “cooking” for Charlie. I will get to prepare him some peas, carrots, squash…a whole bunch of yummy foods. As for sleeping, his bed time is about 7:30. We put him in the crib at this time and depending how tired he is, he will play for about a 15 to 45 minutes. Then he will wake up at 6 to start a new day. Also, he is about 14.5 lbs and easily fitting into 6 month clothes. Overall, Charlie has been sleeping and eating really well. So even though Charlie has taken over the house it has been one big loving conquer and we look forward to the future kingdom of Sir Charlie Wynter Walsh.
06.21.07
Distress signal
Selfwalker, come in Selfwalker, I repeat come in Selfwalker, are you there? Seven days later…..Yup I am here! I took a break from this blog, or in other words I added it to my Priority of Procrastination List. I don’t know who else might have one of these but for me it really works well. The way it works is that I just keep saying, “Oh I need to do that and oh I need to do this.” over and over again like a mantra. For some reason I find absolute comfort in knowing that I should be doing something other than what I am actually doing at the moment, as if I am purposefully defying. For instance, over at my other blog, 52 Reflections, I had to write a reflection for the week. A week and half passed by and each day during that week I kept saying, “I need to write that reflection”. But I never did, until just tonight, I always resorted to watching Good Eats, reading on the internet, or simply some thing else. It’s like there is a competition between two different lists that I have within myself. One being the Priority of Procrastination List and the other Accomplishing Tasks List. Perhaps, this summer I can get one rid of one of those lists, meaning keep the A.T.L. Hopefully, though this goal will not end up on the P.P.L. once Fall rolls around!
06.11.07
Follow the trend
Well, staying at the home front I had a great relaxing weekend. We kept things simple and local, by walking down town for a Friday night fiesta, visiting a local park to throw frisbee and soak up sunshine, and Charlie proofing cabinets. Everything was very chilled and filled with happiness. Also this weekend we started feeding Charile cereal for the first time. I have gotta record one of those before he really gets a hang of it. Already, he is keeping about 50% in his mouth compared to the 10%, if lucky, when he first started. Sure is amazing to think that there was a point when I had no clue how to eat. Evolution is an amazing process. But at the same time, I surely can evolve into mindless patterns instead of progressing forward. (Should I always be trying to move forward?) This reminds of how on my recent water bill it reads
Due to drought conditions, the City of Lenoir is asking residents to voluntarily conserve water
I have been told to conserve water for so long, and I even wrote a poem about it in the fifth grade. What catches my eye most is how the announcement starts, as almost suggesting that if we were not in a drought then feel free to use your water carelessly. Well how does my community exemplify this? I still see many businesses watering grass fronts with automatic sprinklers and much of if ends up on concrete sidewalks and parking lots. I would love to see a business that has a sign reading,
Due to drought conditions, we choose not to water the grass on our property. But don’t worry our food will never be in a drought of flavor!
Why don’t businesses do this? Perhaps their customers are thinking about many other things than H2O. I cannot say that I really conserve water. I only try to use the least amount possible so that I don’t have to pay more. If I had a kiddy pool for Charlie, I would not even think twice about filling it up and dumping it right out. My point is that I question just how much I have evolved since I first wrote that poem in 5th grade. What evolving patterns have I kept during the last sixteen years? I hear people say there comes a time when one acquires enough money that any more is pointless. I questions whether the same is true for evolving? Is there a distinct moment that arrives that any more evolving is pointless? Well for the past 15 billion years it seems like the universe would say no. That is, if the human race is a progression of evolution. Well, all I know is that this blog keeps evolving as I add new posts. Thanks for participating with me. Cheers
06.07.07
Down the Drain…
First, April just has two more days of the 2006-2007 school year! Early congrats sweety; way to make a difference and all of those other cliches that go along with teaching. Second, I received my first pay check from CVCC! I will rock on with dough for about a week because it will be going down the credit card drain. I had some major purchases in May, such as beautiful new computer, a super roomy tent, and a flight to CA. So I basically spent the paycheck even before I had it. Oh well, that is the American way; spend the money that you don’t have. 
What else goes down the drain? Oh toilet does, which reminds of a new word that April and I came up with. A candle that sits on a toilet is called a comotive. And with that, I will stop typing before this post really goes down the drain.
06.04.07
Baby clothes and cars
So what do these two things have in common? Each of them depreciate in value once they leave the store. I always thought that if you want to return merchandise to a store that the price is the same as when it was first bought. Sunday, I learned that this is not always true. Charlie has lots of clothes, just taking up room in his closet. April and I decided to return the ones with tags back to the store. We did not have the receipts but three tags were JC Penny, one was Khols, and all of the Baby Carter clothes we took to Babies R Us. Well, at Babies R Us that scanned the clothes and we found out that many had lost their value under $2.00, which meant that we had to keep it. A couple of outfits were only .50 and others were $1.49! The Khols outfit was worth $5 and JC Penny gave us the best return value by giving us pretty much the ticked price. (That’s right Grandma!) With our store credit we were able to buy some formula, cereal, and some things to baby proof the house. Overall I cannot complain for the return value that much since we did not buy them. Plus, it was nice to do the ol’ switch-a-roo with something that we weren’t using with something that we now are. Yet, I might have discovered a money making opportunity. 
I’ll call it the Baby Blue Book, instead of the Kelly Blue Book. This book will list the value of all the baby stuff, such as strollers, furniture, clothes, etc. What do you think?
06.02.07
Charlie after 4 months
Charlie had his 4 month checkup on Friday. The visit was short and sweet. His weight and height are right on the normal curve. Also, he is in perfect health and still shot free! Next check up will be August. Friday was also my first full day with Charlie in three weeks. Now that I work all week, I have not been able to stay at home with him. So, I was very happy to have another Son and Dad day! It was a blast.
Charlie’s facial features have begun to have a lot of character. He has started to chuckle a bit from being tickled, smile frequently, and become more mobile. His sleeping has been very wonderful. He sleeps from 9-6. In the morning he is usually awake when April goes to feed him. She says that in the morning he is all smiles and he is just waiting around in his crib to get picked up for breakfast. April only has two more weeks of school, then she will be a stay at home Summer Mommy. We are both extremely excited for the summer to come.
I have began my new homepage. Please check it out. I have posted the four month pictures on it and also a short video of Charlie.
Have a great weekend
