candybandiisme

06:53 pm: 3G iPhone
After all that waiting, I finally got my iPhone. I waited until my 2 year contract with Sprint expired, and so now here I am starting fresh with a 2 year contract with AT&T. I got the 16 GB white phone because they sold out on the black 8 GB ones and did not have the black 16 GB ones. There was actually a long line at the Palo Alto store when I went there this afternoon, and Apple associates were checking out ahead of time what model you wanted.

The first thing I did was to plug in some of my frequently contacted numbers, and then programmed my email. That is my yahoo and gmail accounts. Second thing I did was get on twitter and check out its mobile entry abilities. God help me, I will not be able to do my chores anymore, dishwashing, laundry, food shopping....if I get hooked on this.

But now, I will have information at my fingertips, I will be able to play Trivial Pursuit efficiently! Two Fridays ago, we saw Mamma Mia (girlfriends) and we couldn't remember the other movie that Meryl Streep appeared in where her body twisted as she fell from the stairs.
Goldie Hawn was in the movie too. My girlfriend took out her iPhone, googled Meryl Streep and recited a litany of her movies. The movie was there, "Death Becomes Her". Can you imagine a roomful of kids in a classroom with iPhones and contesting some of the facts that you may blurt out that is "iffy"? Say for example, you say Buzz Aldrin was the first man on the moon(duh)....someone could just say, "not really maam, it was Neil Armstrong" after checking out Wikipedia!

How about not remembering the title of the book that was written by Michael Chabon that was about Pittsburg and its mysteries? As quickly as I can blink, someone can dig that information for everybody from amazon.com. This gives me the opportunity to talk a little about "backchanneling" or utilizing the connectedness that we already have anyway, to enhance lesson delivery or learning. With gadgets like the iPhone available to some students or even any audience in a class or workshop, participants can use information gathering techniques to answer or to pose questions that can later be addressed in a group setting.

I would be so thrilled if it were used to check spelling and pronunciation as well. Google certainly has the ability to define words by typing in "define" then a colon and then the word you would want defined.

So much for the iPhone, now I am going to my yoga class.

Tags: 3g iphone, amazon, backchannelling, michael chabon, wikipedia

11:16 am: Pat Kurtz Aragon New Principal
Here is an interview of our incoming principal for 2008-2009. She is Pat Kurtz and in the following video is being interviewed by Daniel Brusilovsky, one of our sophomore students.
She comes in with more than 20 years of experience in education and is from New York.




Welcome to Aragon Ms.Kurtz!

This video was created by a staff of Mouse Squad students Joey Hassid, Daniel Brusilovsky, Tyler Mark and Kyle Masters-Gutierrez.

Music Credits

Middle of Your Dartboard- (Aragon's own) Table for One
Money- Pink Floyd
Mr. Roboto- Styx
Chelsea Dagger- The Fratellis

Tags: mouse squad, new principal

07:51 pm: MacWorld 2008
The MacBook Air is out, it was not the best part of MacWorld, it was a little lackluster compared to the iPhone unveiling last year. I have no desire for it, it may break if I accidentally lean on my messenger bag behind my back on the car seat. It was a thinned down version of the MacBookPros and a somewhat just a fancy gadget to have. I am perfectly happy with my old MacBookPro.

I went to the exhibit hall with 6 MOUSE Squad boys, they were enthusiastic about their iPods and iPhones and learning about new third party applications that they can put on their gadgets. It was like a shopping spree, only that the kids were eager to take as many freebies and little gadgets that the exhibitors were doling out to the attendees. There seemed to be a glut of software developers and most of the young people who were there talked about social networking and social bookmarking through new and enhanced software applications.
What comes to mind is flocker.com where they put friendster on steriods.

Among the freebies I got were t-shirts, water bottles, lip balm, m&ms in a bottle, a bottle of real water, computer wipes and lcd cleaners, a lot of advertising with paper and postcards, dog tags, more skull candy tags, pens, discs that light up, and all sorts of posters.

MacWorld exhibitors were loaded this year. Google even had flip flops that they were giving out. They also had Picasa and sketchup patches that you could sew on your jacket or backpack.

But what was exciting were the software applications and developers who seemed to have mushroomed in a year.
They were developing new web applications for mobile devices. Some of them that were notable were Ambrosia software, Omni Group makers of Omni Focus, EarthView, and a lot more that can be seen in a blog/podcast of one of my students, Douglas Bell. Check out Previewcast.com episode 50 on MacWorld.

10:09 am: Reading with the Amazon Kindle
Miracles will indeed happen. Everyday for the past years that I have known myself to read the newspaper, (we have been inculcated that habit since childhood with my Dad telling us newspapers are cool to read among other things) I had to go out the front door and pick up the newspaper. But now that is all over!!!

Newspapers have been in our computers and we still have to go to the desktop or the laptop and type the url for your daily newspaper or search for it. But now, all of that is gone. I was on my bed in our room in Elk Grove, California, and had my Amazon Kindle next to my bed. I reached out to it and went to "Home", I pushed the scroll button and went on to my free trial subscription to "The San Francisco Chronicle". I took it to the bathroom with me, and as I was settling into my morning routine, the morning paper was on my Kindle! I did not have to go out the front door to pick it up! No more unread newpapers to pile in the garage, no more plastic covers to get you wet with morning dew!

I have two books on my Kindle so far, and I have not regretted having the Kindle at my bedside or with me wherever I go. I am reading "Echo Maker" by Richard Powers and "Eat, Pray Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert.

Here are other sources other than Amazon where you can download your books: (from T. Beck @ Amazon's discussions groups)


www.amazon.com 95,000 or so titles, instant download, easy.

www.gutenberg.org 20,000 or so titles - mostly classics or things that no longer have copywrite. Multiple languages. Three are links to other sites that boast a total of 100k titles. ***, ****

www.worldlibrary.net 400,000 titles - classics, modern, government, multiple languages, all the ones I tried were free. Requires $8.95 yearly subscription fee, consider it the cost of a library card.*, ***, ****

www.fictionwise.com offers both unencrypted and encrypted .mobi files. Full range of reading and many free books as well. *, **, ****

www.mobipocket.com lots of titles, most you can find on amazon.com in the Kindle section for less.

www.webscriptions.net This is Baen books and mostly SiFi. None are encrypted, many are free, and can be transferred directly to your Kindle. Choose Kindle compatible for the download. ****

www.wowio.com uses .pdf format. **, You will need to register and can download up to three books a day, free. Only available to people in the US, due to copyright and licensing restrictions.

www.fictionpress.com 900,000 Mostly original works, as in unknown, normally unpublished authors. Some good, some not, take your chances, you may discover the next JK Rowling. Displays in text. Cut, paste and email to yourself, or save in .txt file and upload.

www.manybooks.net 20,000 titles or so. Has a Kindle format. ***, ****

www.mnybks.net - an extension of Manybooks above, but if you access it through the basic WebBrowser in Kindle, you can download directly to your Kindle, the way you would an Amazon book. Choose the Mobipocket format.

www.feedbooks.com Share books, self published books and a make it yourself newspaper. With a little manipulation of the tools below, you can get your own newspaper, you could probably even directly email it to your Kindle in the morning if you allow that site to send you stuff. You will need to register, but there is no cost.

www.ccel.org Christian centered works. Available in pdf, word, and text, all readily transferable to your Kindle.

* They save as .pdf files that you can email to your Kindle. It sees the .pdf as a file of words, not pictures of words, so it can be resized and adjusted just as any other ebook. Download the book to your PC, and email that file to your Kendle, or freekendle@kendle and load through the USB cable if you want to save the 10 cent conversion charge.

** For the encrypted ones in .mobi, a tool can be used to allow the kindle to see it. This tool does not make a copy of the book, merely adds a flag so that the Kendle can display it (it would be hard to call this a violation of copywrite or use conditions since both formats are amazon's). The tool and directions on how to use it are at: http://igorsk.blogspot.com/2007/12/mobipocket-books-on-kindle.html

*** Site runs on donations

**** Can be downloaded directly to your Kindle when it is plugged in as an external storeage device, simply specify the Kindle folder when selecting where to put your book.

Tags: amazon, kindle

10:34 am: I can hardly wait for my Kindle
I ordered the Kindle from Amazon last Nov. 20th. It shipped Nov. 30 and should arrive at my home on the 7th of December. I can hardly wait!

The Kindle promises to be the ultimate Web 2.0 reading device. It is perpetually connected to the internet using EvMO Technology (mobile device connection) called Whispernet. The Kindle will be able to deliver any book you would want to your electronic reader anywhere! Using the one click feature of Amazon, you can have any book out of 90,000 titles zapped to your Kindle in under a minute. Books will normally cost $9.99. I preordered Echo Maker by Richard Powers. You can also get newspapers and magazines for a monthly fee. Time Magazine and Atlantic Monthly are $1.45 a month. This reader is my Christmas gift to myself.

My book collection has increased and I am running out of shelf space. I really like seeing my book collection (I have been using Shelfari.com already) but I think it will be a lot better if I stored them electronically using the Kindle. The Kindle can carry up to 200 books. It has a 256 MB storage capacity and an SD card slot for additional memory. You can access Wikipedia, a dictionary and of course Amazon.com directly. It is also an mp3 player.

The Kindle even has a rubberized back so that it can do fairly well on porcelain surfaces like that in your bathrooms, just in case your reading habits extend there!






Tags: amazon, books, electronic reader, kindle, shelfari

11:33 am: IISME Fund for Innovation
On November 14th, IISME 2007 fellows who applied and got the Grant monies for the FFI this year had a mini get together at Agilent Technology in Sunnyvale. Shari Liss, Syreeta Watkins, Jennifer Bruchner and the IISME Board of Directors and fellows were there to savor the snacks and good company. I have a short video of the event that I still have to edit. There were four of us from Lockheed Martin who got the $1,000 fund for our school projects we wish to embark on this year. My $1,000 will be spent towards an online curriculum for MOUSE Squad.
It is a program that harnesses students towards being leaders through technology. It will promote distance learning and other online skills.

Please wait for the video. It will be forthcoming.

12:16 pm: Tinikling Dancers
I am also in charge of Pilipino Club members at AHS. We practiced dancing fusion tinikling and performed at the International Food Fair on Friday, October 26, 2007. He had a great time! We practiced and practiced forever!




We watched some tinikling dancers on YouTube and decided we can integrate some moves to perform in our choreography. We are looking forward to dancing for Kaiser Permanente SSF who invited us for a future date.

03:48 pm: Halloween and Technology
The October festivities are just around the corner. Halloween is coming up and I was just wondering how much technology has been infused in our Halloween celebrations. A visit to grocery or drug stores will reveal a lot of motion sensors on witches, goblins and ghoulish creatures. Upon passing or making some movements around these items, sounds of moaning, witch-like laughing and giants roaring will scare the unsuspecting consumer.

Online purchase of spirit enhancing paraphernalia are on the rise as well. You can purchase your entire Halloween attire through the wonders of e-bay and online halloween spirit stores. You can even go to a website of stories to tell, sounds to listen to for Halloween. You can scare yourself silly going to www.fear.net

For me, getting scared at Halloween will be looking at my bill at Fry's Stores. I think my technology bill for new monitors, new tech gadgets that I have acquired is enough to send me cringing in fear.


Tags: technology halloween

09:09 am: My iPod got Stolen
This is a sad story. I brought my iPod Touch to school. I had it in my purse that was inside my messenger bag.
It was no less than ten minutes and I probably was distracted with some students roaming around in class and when I looked in my purse, the iPod was not there.

I reported it right away to the dean of our high school and there was an immediate response from the campus aides. The students were not allowed to leave the room without being searched. The iPod turned up and three students are now in custody possibly facing misdemeanor charges and some jail time.

This is a case of some sticky fingers and the lure of technology and the "must have" it at whatever cost.
There is a lot of thinking about this phenomenon.

I got my iPod back though, thanks to our excellent team work of the dean and his staff doing really clever police work at our school. The students are going to be punished for it, better they learn now than later.

10:43 pm: iPod TOUCH
Okay, now it is the iPod on steroids again. Welcome to the world of Apple products that have once again fueled my addiction to technology. iPods have given birth to better, sleeker and bigger media devices! the iPhone is the top of the line, and next to it are the new varieties of iPods, the video nano, the video, the $399 iPhone. Aaack! What am I going to do with my old iPods? I have parked my first shuffle, gave away my first generation mini iPod and lent my video iPod to a friend.

The holiday spirit will be awash with iPods..I can picture everybody singing and groovin with their songs. Apple will be inundated with holiday cash!

Me? I want a grand piano instead of an iPhone.

10:08 am: IN SCHOOLS, STUDENTS "POWER DOWN" :(
Only dowbiggins writes or posts videos. I lost the dock to my video camera and I have so many film footages to download! I have wonderful snippets of everything I have been doing for a vlog that I want to start. For school, I have video footage of kids wanting to play games, and for lunch time, they bring their Nintendo games so they can play in groups! There are Halo addicts who bring flash drives so they can play their games.
Another group of kids even brought their Guitar Hero equipment. Call my relaxed attitude with the computers silly (playing games) but I think if students are doing their work and they are using their lunch breaks or other spare time to play, I can understand that they need to be on the computers or engaging themselves in their digital environment. I marvel at the camaraderie and the sense of a "collective" that they display when they are playing. I like watching students when they are "challenged" in their digital environment, whether it is play or not. I like how I can almost see their brains "engage"!

My training in psychology tells me that the brain cannot be "powered" down readily. The brain goes through withdrawal. We have so many children who have been on computers since they were practically toddlers. Can you imagine what school is doing to children and eventually teenagers who aren't allowed access to computers?

We have children who are already bored in kindergarten. A nephew of ours says school is boring because he gets tired not doing anything and waiting. In his home, he is very occupied with his computer, legos that he can build, books he can already read, magazines that have been available for him to look at. In his home environment, he is always busy, occupied with his own learning. Their first lessons are to "trace" his letters of the alphabet using a pencil. The kindergarten curriculum is now teaching a child how to use his other motor skills when he has already learned how to use the keyboard and the mouse. He complains about being tired and his hand being "exhausted".

Tags: school

02:31 pm: Teachers teaching without technology
This is going to be a thing of the past. Whether we like it or not, technology has to be part and parcel of the learning process in schools. Yesterday, a  pitch was made by a sales person from Avery technology products at our teacher training. She was so enthused about a document camera that could be the next generation overhead projector, computer peripheral and an overall integrated media tool to show and record and store information that you would like to teach with to your students.  No more messy overhead slides and ink, no more bulbs to fix, just a reader that is attached to your projector.

The graphing calculator that our Algebra and Trigonometry students carry is a must now, and explaining the way we manage integers and right angles can be better explained using an interactive board that is attached to a compute running GSP (Geometer Sketchpad) or Fathom. Digital probes attached to computer stations are a great way to speed up data gathering in a physics or biology lab.

The biggest technology tool however is the information/media/library gadget.  It is the laptop, or desktop computer.  Every child has to have access to information at his fingertips. The cell phone will evolve as that gadget if it hasn't already.

So teachers, we need to arm ourselves with the new tools for teaching in the 21st century!  The next generation of students who are waiting to be in your classroom are so wired that it would be an interruption of learning if you attempt to power them down.

Tags: learning, technology

11:05 pm: The Future IISME Fellowships: Teachers in IISPace
Do you think the next IISME fellowships will be opportunities to go to space?  Picture Shari Liss and the rest of the IISME staff processing applications. Will there be peer coaches?  Think of Orientation, MOS and EOS activities!  This is probably one of the reasons that IISME should not enforce a 5 year limit rule. As long as a teacher is healthy, ready, willing and qualified, she or he should be able to apply!  You never know, it could be a ticket to the Moon or Mars!
I watched a documentary on Big Science today and saw how Helium 3 is an element that could be a potential source of energy using fusion technology.  Helium 3 is abundant in the moon. There are good reasons to go and explore the lunar surface and beyond!  At Lockheed Martin Space Systems, scientists are busy to preparing to launch Orion, the spacecraft that will replace the space shuttle program.  This vessel will go to the moon in early 2008. The imperative is not just to explore the lunar surface but to explore the possibility of prolonged stays and possible establishment of colonies.  Anyone interested in being part of the crew?

01:09 pm: DIVERSITY DAY


Diversity Week kicks off today and here at Lockheed, there were booths that were set up to showcase the efforts of company organizations and affiliates at promoting the diversity appreciation in the workplace.  It has been a finding that a more diverse workforce is a smarter workforce owing to the fact that within a talent pool of workers from different ethnic, religious, educational, gender and socio economic backgrounds, there are more ideas that abound.

Diversity Day is done to raise awareness of how much better people are as a team. When a workplace can celebrate and leverage their unique values and perspectives, it becomes a more intelligent, cohesive workforce.

They gave away water bottles, chips, notebooks, tote bags, American Indian dream catchers, flyers, pop corn and keychains of all sorts.  The pool of affiliate organizations around the Santa Clara area namely Kara, Junior Achievement, Rape Crisis Center (YWCA), Discover, among the few that I saw, manned the booths with Lockheed employees.  

Tags: diversity

02:20 pm: Lunch Choices
As our IISME fellowship winds down next week, the lunch invites for teachers are going to be  rampant.  I have made a few friends and we have been anxious to spend more time together eating lunches at some of the nicer places around Mathilda Ave. before we forget each other.  This is not to say that the lunch cafeteria downstairs is also an excellent choice for good food.

Downstairs, we have many healthy alternatives for lunch: salads, pizzas, mongolian barbeque, burgers with different types of fries and onion rings, fruit, soups, pastas and all kinds of gourmet looking stuff.  It is not as fancy as the Googleplex's selection but it is decent and trans-fat free.    For as little as $1.00 for the soup and as much as $8.00 plus tax for the salmon salad, you can have a wide variety of really excellent portions that are filling and healthy. I have been bringing lunch to work and I have been bringing pork buns, pizza, veggie spaghetti and have mooched off some chicken and gazpacho from another IISME teacher.  I have brought some barbequed artichokes and some roasted squash and peppers. somehow, eating out is very much more exciting.
 
But around here, there are many lunch places to check out if you are so inclined:  Tomorrow, we will have a catered lunch for our Check-out presentation, and I also had to cancel a luncheon to Seto's Sushi.  I went to a Filipino place on Lawrence Ave called "Clarita's".  It was very cozy and they had the best selection of rice plates.  I had the jackfruit with coconut sauce and  beef with onions.  They also had some soup together with the meal. 

02:33 pm: IISME Fellowship winding down
It will be about 8 days and counting and we will be done. Now, I am getting sad by the minute.  I had such a great fellowship and met so many good people both in person and online through our blogging group.  Tonight, we are going to our bloggy get together in Santana Row and that should be a blast!  

I am plodding through this big project that I was given and I have made a commitment to myself to finish it no matter what.  Even if I have to come back without being paid, I will certainly finish it to completion.  The reason for this is I am heavily invested in its outcome and I would like to see it done the way I envisioned it to be done.

I am responsible for creating the tutorial for the PEER REVIEW tool that they will be using for all the lines of business here at Lockheed Martin. Technical Operations is trying to have the company achieve level 4 and 5 certification which is mandated by the DoD. (Department of Defense).  The process of doing this is through CMMI mapping and compliance.  Technical Operations here assesses its CIPs (Common Industry Practices) and aligns them to standards. It is the buzzword now in the aerospace industry as well as all industries that does software engineering to run their productions.

It is hard to leave a learning environment like this where the stakes are high and I have become a participant of it.
The engineers here are extremely professional and dedicated to their work.  You can tell that by their motto of having 100% mission success on all their endeavors.  

I wish all teachers would adopt the same commitment, the same determination and the same products!



Tags: cmmi

03:14 pm: Sleepy and Drowsy in My Cubicle

2:30-3:00 p.m. is my witching hour here at my cubicle.  No matter what, I get so sleepy that my eyes literally need toothpicks to prop my eyelids up.  I try to stretch, I try to do yoga poses on my chair, I try just about everything but my oxygen level is probably 0 and I yawn like crazy.  My friends go down for coffee at the Java City downstairs.  It is probably good to walk and get that iced-coffee to break the monotony up here in my cubicle.  I have been IMing Lindsay (mesymartian) and that has at least alleviated the sleepiness and drowsiness.  

Somehow, my view here from my cubicle is the sunny atrium and it keeps my equally sunny disposition. There is an inordinate amount of sunlight filtering through the glass ceiling.  On sunny days it is bright and cheery, on overcast days it casts a gloomy grey pall. Thank goodness it is summer.

I am working on a 206 page model map and I am on page 51 so far.  That really sucks because it is so tedious and time consuming.  It requires the patience of a saint to do this job. At least, I am not doing many jobs.  My co-workers here are swamped with work like mine but triple or double the workload that they have to multitask. There are outrageous deadlines too owing to the meetings that they conduct to check on the progress of the work.
I am glad I'll be going back to school. Cubicle life is NO, I repeat NO picnic.  It gives me the shivers to think that there are people who have actually spent 25 years of their careers in cubicles. School is more mellow.  There are students everywhere, you can talk to kids and interact freely. There is no, I repeat NO sleepy time at school for teachers.

Tags: sleep

11:27 am:

 $240.00?  

I am frustrated that I did not get to watch Ratatouille last night and will have to wait for today to watch it.  Well, in preparation for watching the movie, I am going to check out an expensive if not the  MOST expensive French restaurant in California, French Laundry, online!

Here's the scoop:  for a party of 4, $1600 is the minimum amount you'd spend. What in God's creation would cost that much? Well, here is what I found out:

1.  It is in Yountville, Napa

2.  It takes about 2 months to get a reservation

3.  There are three menus daily. Each is $240 (as of 2007) including service. One is a prix fixe menu; the second is a  tasting menu, and the third is a vegetable tasting menu. 

4.  Tasting menus consist of between five and  eleven  dishes, often with some courses (for example white truffles, foie gras or Wagyu beef or black truffles) for about $30 to $100 more - a "supplement." 

 5.  Unadvertised, but available by arrangement, is a special tasting menu with approximately twenty courses at about  $400. 

 6. The food is mainly contemporary American with French influences, often based upon American food concepts and phrases but prepared according to high French culinary preparations, while drawing upon the entire planet for inspiration. Most of the dishes are culinarily extravagant and dramatically presented with a staff ready and willing to discuss each dish's ingredients. The staff moves in synchronization and throws in special touches like presenting various butters, noting various types of salts and bringing truffles out in special made boxes to add to the effect of the occasion.

  7. The dishes are served in either seven or nine courses. While ingredients such as 100-year-old balsamic vinegar are sourced world wide, Thomas Keller, chef extaordinaire  is also a champion of local family owned producers of high-quality produce, meats and other ingredients, including produce from the French Laundry's garden across the street and breads from down the road. Thomas Keller's philosophy is a diversity and progression of small dishes with a variety of tastes and aesthetics (similar to kaiseki cuisine). An extended meal can stretch to as long as six hours, with a break suggested midway to relax in the French Laundry's garden, weather allowing. An average meal takes 3.5 to four hours.

  8. Dishes are typically innovative and laborious to prepare, with many bearing whimsical names. Signatures dishes include Oysters and Pearls (oyster and caviar served on warm savory pearl tapioca custard), Surf and Turf (lobster tail with sauteed foie gras), Peas and Carrots (lobster knuckle meat wrapped in a pancake with carrot and butter emulsion sauce and pea shoots), Coffee and Doughnuts (miniature fried doughnuts with a small demitasse of espresso), and Yabba-Dabba-Doo (bone-in beef ribeye with crispy potatoes and prunes).

   9.  This building that houses the restaurant  was a former brothel.
  

It is 11:26 a.m. and for some reason I am not hungry.

 

 

Tags: french laundry, ratatouille

09:19 am: Friday to JUST BE!
Haaaaah! Friday morning and I am still in bed at 7:30!!! I stretch and just lazily get out of bed towards the bathroom.  No early morning commute today, no desk with a pile of papers waiting for me....only the stove in the kitchen for any breakfast to eat.  Now, my email is waiting. (our yahoo accounts do not work at Lockheed). This is my every other Friday off from our 9/80 schedule so I am thankful for a free, unstructured day!

I ate two breakfast rolls and put 7 slices of bacon on the pan.  I turned on the t.v. and watched a wedding at the Amalfi coast on HDTV. How beautiful!  Outside, it is also beautiful.  It is already 9:24 a.m. and I have nothing structured, only walking around the house like a zombie in my nightgown still, and with a slice of bacon in my mouth. I checked out the plants in my atrium, they are begging for water.  There are weeds too that I have not been able to take out. I am also watching the news and am channel surfing.  My husband just told me about a NASA pre-flight training that they are showing on t.v.

Now, I am seeing cobwebs by my window, and seeing the unattended stuff in my backyard.  There are dog's toys that dot the dry grass, and Sal our dog is asleep nearby. My boys (I have two teen-age boys) are on summer break and are still in bed, I do not want them awake yet.

Here's what I think I will do today:
0.  Go to the YMCA and swim
1.  Fix our room, get the lampshades cleaned and put on nightstands that I still have to get from the garage.
2.  Sift through my email from my other "boss" who I work for in a non-profit organization I belong to.
3.  Finish my emails to my family e-group (very impt)
4.  Go to my book club at 4:00 p.m. (make sure to print out discussion guide)
5.  Get caught up with my blogging, (finish my final paper due July 31)
6.  Spend time with my husband

It is now 9:37 a.m. and if I do not get out of here, I am doomed.

Yikes!!!!! I will  not have enough time to do all these!!!! This was supposed to be an unstructured day :(

Tags: day unstructured

01:01 pm: THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) @ Lockheed
            
These are all found on the google images site. (THAAD) 

We went on a tour of THAAD this morning.  It was the first location where I spent my summer IISME fellowship in 2002.  A lot has changed in five years.  For starters, the lobby has been reduced to a smaller entry portal, it looks less opulent like it was before.  But the hallways are newer looking, and there were more displays that were models of the battle managers and the tests that they have conducted in the last decade. 

The visitor tour is more extensive now, the guests come in and are given white lab coats, and noticeably younger engineers are in the area, there are young women too, overseeing the tours and working on the computers inside the lab area.  There are glass windows and carpeted areas to look into the battle equipment which featured the actual missile, the launcher and the humvees which housed the computers and telemetry to track the missile.

Five years ago, it was not a snappy looking lab, it just housed the Oshkosh launcher and the missiles, without much attention to debris and outsider implements that would interfere with the "cleanliness" and "scrupulousness" of the lab.  Then they took us to a showroom with a video of the actual tests that have been conducted.  There were films of missile deployment/tests in New Mexico and Kauai island.  The room looked like it could be a movie set from a Denzel Washington movie. The next room was a lighter colored room with seats like you were in a movie theater.  A young aeronautics engineer explained the deployment of a missile and how software code drives the trajectory and monitoring of the cone head of the missile.

There were more young engineers in the audience and they were listening to the explanation of the young engineer who seemed more excited about the coolness of the technology and the "neatness"of the project.  He also talked about the next steps and the future missiles that will be the offshoot of new technologies.  We will have faster and smaller missiles that will be able to go farther out without the radar technology in place. 

A very well informed gentleman gave us the explanation of what the missile can do, and obviously, they were very proud of their stellar accomplishment of being able to create the defensive weaponry that can intercept an incoming missile through an interceptor missile, the THAAD product.

I have problems with missile defense.  I think that as the capability for defense increases, so does the capability for offense. It costs upwards to $20 M to deploy a test missile.  Can you imagine how much 8 tests would cost? 
War and defense are really big money pits that the government spends $$$$$ on.  War is profitable and generates jobs. But wars are also mean and ugly, immoral and has no reasonable justification.

Tags: defense, thaad, war