Me for Pres '08?

Did she call me a "virtual unknown"?! Pshaaa! If Real News is calling it "Catherall Mania" then I beg to differ. And, while I'm quite flattered, please...no more tattoos.

But really. I don't think the country is ready for another Bill in the White House. On the plus side, comedians would be impersonating me on Saturday Night Live. And I promise to increase NASA spending by 10,000%.

Adam - Piano

Adam has been watching Tammie teach other kids piano for a while now and has been begging to be taught as well. Tammie wasn't sure that he was ready or that he'd stick with it so she kept putting it off. Meanwhile Adam would occasionally sit at the piano and "play songs" by just randomly playing the keys. But he wouldn't pound, he'd act like he was playing for real. So Tammie decided to give it a shot and just see what happens.

He took to it like a fish to water and is progressing very rapidly. Tammie began teaching him sometime in late February this year and he's moving along very well. We're also surprised at how much interest he has in it. He begs for more lessons and we never have to force him to go practice. We usually have to force him to take a break. He'll even walk away from a full dinner plate to go play some more.

Mickey Mouse March


He performed these two songs at a Primary talent show last Saturday. When people asked how long he'd been playing and I'd answer "a little over 2 months," they'd respond with, "You mean he's been practicing those songs for 2 months?" "No, that's when he started playing the piano."

Popeye the Sailor Man


He got a big kick out of seeing himself on Youtube after I uploaded these videos. Now he wants me to make more.

PowerBots

Yesterday, David and his Lego team attended the state FIRST LEGO competition. They participated last month at the local tournament and did so well there that they were invited back this month to the state tournament. The video above is from their 3rd round at the table competition where they earn points by completing mission objectives. (They are the Beaverton PowerBots in the bottom half of the split screen.) They designed and programmed the robot to perform the missions autonomously. This final round was their best of the 3 (I don't know what the score actually was, but things went much better than in the other 2).

The scoring at the table is only 25% of the final score though. The other 75% of the final score is comprised of judging based on teamwork, robot design (technical), and a presentation on the research project. This year's theme was alternative energy sources and the project was to visit a local building, do an energy audit, and make recommendations for more energy savings.

Here's a video from one of the practice rounds where the kids tested out some last minute modifications.



This competition is a really fun way to introduce kids to the world of engineering. They are given a set of problems and some parameters in which to solve those problems. Also, they are not given a whole lot of time to solve the problems. Even the most organized teams who begin meeting early in the year only have a couple months to work out the details of this particular competition. So not only do they learn some engineering principles such as drive trains, chassis design, power transfer, programming, etc. but they get to learn problem solving skills. There are often even problems that come up at the competition where they could only have a few minutes to brain storm and execute the change.

Here's a video from one of the practice sessions for the research project presentation.



They did really well yesterday competing against some of the best teams throughout the state and got 2nd Place in the category of Innovative Design!

Way to go team!

Dinner at Red Robins

I'm testing writing to my blog while waiting for the food to get here.

(Edit at home - Apparently I did it wrong so the picture wasn't showing up. I had to post manually. By the way, this picture was taken with a "less than ideal" cell phone camera.)

Merry Christmas! (2007)

Hello everyone and Merry Christmas! We had fun opening presents and ate our traditional Eggs Benedict. We even got our first real snowfall of the year.

David was very excited about getting exactly what he wanted.


Rachel got a "Just like me" doll. Although, I doubt the doll will behave just like her. (I mean the doll could never be as sweet...yeah, yeah...that's the ticket.)


And Adam loves games. Here's one that should keep him busy for a while.


Who asked for snow?