timOlinda.com

Greetings! Hope you are doing well on another snowy day. (Snow on the ground, more on the way!) Tired of the white stuff yet? I am asking for your help.

I have been working on a redesign of my website recently. Trying out a few new ideas and adding some features. I have been using WordPress for some time now with a variety of themes. I am trying to tie together the look and feel of my blog/website/twitter spaces and any future social media I will use. My “primary” audience (no pun intended) is elementary students in grades 1 to 5. I also post for family and friends, but try to keep the reading level and content kid-friendly.

I am asking you to check out my website for a few minutes and send me some sort of feedback. Commenting on this post would be awesome, but you can also reach me on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, email, smoke signals, etc. Looking forward to hearing from you all. Thank you!

As I write this blog entry for my students, I am remembering a December day back in 1975. I had read the poem “Voyagers” by Emily Dickinson, and was commenting on it in my creative writing journal for Miss Alexander’s English class. Didn’t realize that steno pad would still be around 35 years later. Today we have another snow day off from school, and many of us are reading right now. (I do have a family of readers!) These days, though, much of that reading and writing takes place on a computer screen while tapping quietly on a keyboard. Thank you to all my teachers that taught me well! Here is that poem, one of Miss Alexander’s favorites:

There is no frigate like a book
To take us lands away,
Nor any coursers like a page
Of prancing poetry.
This traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of toll;
How frugal is the chariot
That bears a human soul!

I saw an interesting advertisement for Acura’s Active Sound Control. In Acura vehicles, the speakers can create an interesting sound – SILENCE! Active Sound Control listens to engine noise in the car interior and broadcasts sound canceling signals to eliminate that extra noise. This technology works whether the stereo is in use or not. Here’s a link to Acura that describes this high tech system. Pretty amazing what technology we enjoy in the 21st century! My two youngest sons think this is totally cool. How about you? If this is in an Acura today, how long until we see the technology in economy cars of the future? Time will tell, or Tim will tell you soon.

Little Caesars’ mobile trailer named the “Love Kitchen” is a working cookery used by the company to reach out to the needy. It is a charitable extension to assist organizations like the Pacific Garden Mission while helping those in need. PGM arranged two visits around the Holidays to the delight of those who came through the doors of the mission. The Love Kitchen has also been used outside of the Chicago area. Back in 2005, it rolled into Louisiana and began feeding pizzas to those most severely affected by Hurricane Katrina. In the first 10 days of service, with the help of local franchisees, it provided nearly 16,000 meals to evacuees and victims of the hurricane. Because of the great need, Little Caesars mobilized a second Love Kitchen and sent it to help with serving food in coordination with the American Red Cross. It is good to hear of companies that reach out to people in a time of need to provide help. Here’s a picture of the “Love Kitchen” during the Hurricane Katrina relief effort.

The aspect ratio is the width of a picture in relationship to its height. In the United States, TV always used a 4:3 ratio in the past, regardless of the size of the television screen. The three most common ratios are 4:3, 16:9, and 2.39:1 (Cinemascope.) The black bars top and bottom sometimes seen were introduced with letterboxing of 16:9 images on 4:3 screens. Letterboxing reduces widescreen images until they fit on a standard 4:3 ration screen, hence the feeling you are seeing the image through a letterbox slot. Some people think they are losing part of the image; in reality, the image is all preserved, but empty black bars are left on the screen. This image is from Videomaker magazine:

Now that 16:9 has become the new default format for widescreen TV, DVD and Hi-Def video, a new problem occurs. When viewing older 4:3 images on a widescreen, you will now have vertical black columns or pillars on both sides. The picture is all there, but many people find the pillars distracting. One solution is to stretch the image to fill the wide screen. This can cause distortion, and almost always makes people look fat on screen. Perhaps a new technological fix will be found. Time will tell, or Tim will tell you later. Enjoy whatever format you are watching. I personally enjoy the 1:1 ratio…real life!

I have been involved with Family History research for a good number of years. Social media/networking has been an interest mainly over the past twelve months. I am wondering now how those two parts of my life might be blended together. (And I am pretty sure that some technology device will be right in the middle of that blending.) Where do I begin?

I started researching my family history (formally) about 1997 or so. I remember the black laptop (running Windows 95) that I carried around, collecting information from many relatives. Seems like a long time ago. My genealogy now contains about 2500 individuals. (That number used to sound very large; now that I have lots of friends on Facebook, it doesn’t sound quite as big any more.) Hundreds of hours of research, photos, stories, documents, etc. We have had a number of deaths in the family in the past 5 years, and that seems to have sidetracked my collection of family facts. Feeling more mortal, or just a little older, for whatever reason, the pace has slowed a bit.
Enter social media. I had dabbled in social networking over the years on AOL, eWorld, and other sites, but finally settled on Classmates.com in 2008 to begin serious contacts. A few months later, classmates were telling me about the rapidly growing network of high school friends over on Facebook. I jumped in and have been very engaged ever since. To me, Facebook is much more dynamic than any site I had used in the past. Very immediate as well. I was hooked.

Now I am wondering, how can I combine my interest in family history with my new social media skills and contacts? (As a sidelight, consider the possiblilities of genetic genealogy, using DNA to tie together individuals and families.) Family history could be the next big component of social (media) networking with a kind of historic digital storytelling. Any ideas out there? Stay tuned for the next big thing – maybe we will witness the start of a new blend of social networking. Time will tell, or Tim will tell you later.

This photograph of my father is from about the time of the Great Depression. My Dad was born in 1924 in Philadelphia, and this photo came from an old Bosher Family Album.

One picture is worth a thousand words, or so they say. In the past, America got its images in magazines such as “Life” and they could be amazing. Today we take images for granted, but once that media was the domain of the gifted photojournalist. Until Life magazine stopped weekly publication in 1972, it helped define American culture in photos for much of the 20th century. Now many of those photos are available online.

Teachers can use this online resource to give students an online window into another world. The archive and website were created in partnership with Getty Images, now the world’s largest photo agency. Check out the article  in Edutopia by Owen Edwards to get more information and experience all that the website has to offer. Smile for the camera!

One of earth’s greatest assets is its life-supporting atmosphere. Only 8 other bodies in our solar system are surrounded by gas to a significant degree. Do you know their names? (Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Titan, and Triton.) I read a brief article on this topic called “Atmospheres: A Narrow Zone for Life.” Author David F. Coppedge goes on to describe atmospheres generally and specifically here in our solar system. (He works in the Cassini Program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.) A planet’s atmosphere is tied to its geology, and you can learn more on this topic in many places. Up, up and away!

Two friends now helping in Haiti. Angie is with a medical team from the University of Iowa Hospitals. Teams are rotating in and out of the country to provide much needed medical support. She should be in Haiti in a few days. Rich is already in Haiti helping. His brother Jeff posted several links and pictures related to Rich in Haiti. Let’s continue to pray for the people of Haiti, and all those who are supporting the relief effort at this time. This help will need to continue for a long time.

1.  January – President Obama said the Guantanamo Bay detention center would be closed by this deadline.

2.  February – The 2010 Winter Olympics take place in Vancouver, Canada.

3.  March – Musicians delight in the music of Chopin, born 200 years ago.

4.  April – In America, we answer questions for the U.S. Census (once every ten years.)

5.  May – World Laughter Day happens during this month.

6.  June – South Africa is the site for the FIFA Soccer World Cup.

7.  July – The fashion world shows off in the Paris Haute Couture week.

8.  August – The deadline arrives for American combat troops to leave Iraq.

9.  September – The diplomats of the world gather at the UN General Assembly in New York.

10. October – Germany celebrates 20 years since unification.

11. November – The U.S. Election of 435 Representatives, about 33 Senators, and 39 Governors.

12. December – America celebrates the 390th anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims.

Some highlights of the year 2010 from The Economist magazine. Happy New Year!

Apple has finally announced their new tablet device, the iPad. Long time coming. Of course, they did have the Newton many years ago, but this is much better. My brother still uses the Newton-I wonder if he will migrate to the new iPad? The iPad is a bridge device from the iPhone/iPod Touch line up to the MacBook line of laptops. It will compete directly with eReaders like the Kindle, and netbooks. It may very well do for publishing/newspaper/magazines what the iPod did for the music industry – big time change. I was surprised that Apple did not announce a new carrier(s) for the iPhone, but that may be coming soon. I was also looking for an update to the popular iLife software for 2010, but I guess we have most of the rest of 2010 left. Probably a steady stream of announcements from a very successful company with very elegant, dependable devices. (Looking at Apple, you wouldn’t know we were in the midst of a financial crisis.) Maybe Steve Jobs should be the Treasury Secretary…

Read an interesting article in NEA Today from August/September 2009. Educators have long questioned the reliability of Wikipedia. The wealth of content can’t be beat, but the problem is…how much of it is reliable? Wikipedia for Schools is a site offering thousands of articles individually checked for accuracy and appropriateness. Topics are selected from many academic categories and made ready for use by students. The result is like having a 20-volume printed encyclopedia that can be browsed online or downloaded for free at this site. It ends up being about 3GB in size, and is ideal for locations with little or no internet access. It is a trade-off, since the number of articles and links is limited in size and scope, but students can’t click off to other sites that may not be safe or appropriate for school. Will it prove to be a valuable trade-off? Time will tell, or Tim will tell you later. Happy searching!

The following general information comes from the Delaware State Forest Brochure, with a few of my thoughts amongst those facts. Blackbird State Forest, located on the border of New Castle and Kent Counties, is Delaware’s northernmost state forest. We have visited the Forest many times over the past 20 years with our children. Since our 3 oldest children are all young adults, we are starting round two of the adventure with our two youngest sons. It is only a 30-minute commute from Wilmington and Newark. It has nine tracts totaling over 4,800 acres and contains a mixture of oaks, yellow-poplar, maple, gums, and hickories. The northern regional office is located on the Tybout Tract on Blackbird Forest Road, also the location of the Ranger Station.

Blackbird is a popular site for outdoor recreation. We have had birthday parties there for many of our children, and often walked the many trails. Its 40 miles (that many?) of trails are used extensively for hiking, running, bicycling, horseback riding, and cross-country skiing. There is also a 2,200 foot paved nature trail designed for wheelchair accessibility. If you walk the paved nature trail, you will also find out what a “Whale Wallow” is and where to find it in the Forest. The trail system at Blackbird interconnects five primitive campsites and four picnic sites, available on a first-come, first-served basis. One of the campsites is VERY close to some train tracks, which we discovered in the middle of the night. (Nothing quite like a freight train to wake you up in the wilderness! Blackbird is also open to hunting and catch-and-release fishing. Blackbird State Forest is a hidden gem here in Delaware, and a great place to visit. Hoping you will NOT read this post so we can enjoy it in solitude…just kidding!  See you at the pond!

Some might question why America should help a country like Haiti? My reply would be “Why not?” More on that later. America is often the first country to rush aid in the wake of natural disasters or political upheavals. When military intervention is needed, our troops are often there first. When economic help is needed, the United States starts and continues a steady stream of money or resources to help a country get back on its feet after a troubled time. We give of our time, our treasure, and our talent to people we don’t even know around the world. (I believe that is a good idea.) But when and how did we decide that was the “right” thing to do?

Why help Haiti? Why not?! The United States as a country, and as a people have been blessed. We enjoy great material wealth, safety, countless freedoms and prosperity almost all of the time. If we have been greatly blessed, I believe we have a moral obligation to help others who are struggling. And the more we give away, the more we seem to have here at home. America is not a perfect place, but it is surely one of the best places to live in the world. We don’t have fences keeping us in. We don’t see many of our citizens trying to escape our shores to some other land of opportunity. We are in a unique position to be a blessing to many other people, in many countries around the world. Do we have challenges? Yes, but with any challenges come so many opportunities. I am proud to be an American. Perhaps our greatest days as a nation are yet to come. Let not your heart be troubled!

Here’s an email from a friend of mine in Iowa. I knew Angie when she had just started school, and now she is finishing medical school. In this picture, she was a happy little girl in New Jersey. Now married with her own children, she wants to go and do what she can to help heal children and parents in Haiti’s earthquake devastation. She would appreciate your prayers for her family and medical team at this time. Thank you!

Dear Friends and Family,

After a period of sincere thought and prayers, we have decided that I should travel to Haiti in the coming weeks to join a medical team from the University of Iowa Hospitals.  As you might imagine, I feel very deeply for these people and want to do what I can to join in the effort to heal those who have suffered illness and wounds in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake.  As I prepare to graduate from medical school, I know that I have the skills that it will take to make a true difference in the lives of these people.  If I am able to help give a child back to her mother, or a father back to his family, then I will know I will have made a difference.

I will be traveling with highly trained  physicians with experience in tropical, wilderness, and disaster medicine. A group of 10 physicians from Iowa has already arrived in Haiti and has begun to work with other medical personnel to set up hospital beds and operating rooms.  I will travel and stay under the safety net of Save the Children and other organizations who are sponsoring medical efforts in Haiti.  While I realize this trip is not without risk, it is what my heart is calling me to do.

As many of you know, travel to Haiti is very difficult right now.  If willing and able, I would appreciate both your prayers and financial support as I embark on this journey.  If you would like to help, please click on the link below (or copy and paste it into your web browser), to leave a contribution in my paypal account.  Also, please pass this email along to anyone you may know that would be interested in supporting this cause.  Any excess funds beyond those that I raise for my travel expenses  will be passed on to provide further medical support to the people of Haiti.

Sincerely,

Angie Kerchner, M4
University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=11304152