cpujoe

I found a couple of pictures of Georgia sleeping on the couch. She is so lazy!

Nolan found some Corn Nuggets..

Exploring power, ownership, and equity in an early childhood classroom

By Ann Pelo and Kendra Pelojoaquin

Carl and Oliver, both 8-year-olds in our after-school program, huddled over piles of Legos. They carefully assembled them to add to a sprawling collection of Lego houses, grocery stores, fish-and-chips stands, fire stations, and coffee shops. They were particularly keen to find and use “cool pieces,” the translucent bricks and specialty pieces that complement the standard-issue red, yellow, blue, and green Lego bricks.

“I’m making an airport and landing strip for my guy’s house. He has his own airplane,” said Oliver.

“That’s not fair!” said Carl. “That takes too many cool pieces and leaves not enough for me.”

“Well, I can let other people use the landing strip, if they have airplanes,” said Oliver. “Then it’s fair for me to use more cool pieces, because it’s for public use.”

Discussions like the one above led to children collaborating on a massive series of Lego structures we named Legotown. Children dug through hefty-sized bins of Legos, sought “cool pieces,” and bartered and exchanged until they established a collection of homes, shops, public facilities, and community meeting places. We carefully protected Legotown from errant balls and jump ropes, and watched it grow day by day.

After nearly two months of observing the children’s Legotown construction, we decided to ban the Legos.

Read On…Â

Charlotte and I talked and I decided that I should keep a chronicle of all the concerts I’ve been to. We go through spurts where we see a few bands all at once and then stop for a while…So I’m making a page here on the website..

Bands I’ve seen and Concerts I’ve been to

Also, me and some of the guys from work are going to do our semi-annual paintball bash. Right now, we’re forecasting it to be Sunday, January 20th. I’m keeping a page which tracks the 5 W’s…

Operation Soaring Eagle (Paintball 2008)

Dear Makers of Corn Nuggets,

You are very mysterious. Have you stopped making Corn Nuggets? Where can we find you and why must you torture me? I love your Corn Nuggets, yet I cannot find them anywhere. Your crispy exterior and warm corny interior makes me salivate like Pavlov’s dog. Where hast thou gone? You are not at Sam’s Club, Giant, Shoppers, or Aldi’s. This is almost a crime. The last time I devoured a Corn Nugget, my roommate at 3/4 of them and I was yet again deprived of your tasty goodness.

Sincerely,

- Joe

So, as you all know, I have been at BNCOC (Basic Non-Commissioned Officer Course) for the last two weeks…I’m here at Aberdeen Proving Grounds Maryland…Needless to say, this place sucks. Yesterday and today have been the worst days of my life..Let me see if I can summarize why..

• Â A friend of mine dropped my laptop (accidentally) yesterday and dented the housing. It still seems to work but ‘dropping’ is not covered under the extended warranty (which I didn’t buy BTW)
• We had out first test (of two) yesterday. I felt that I did good on it but was told I made a 55%. All the questions were “Fill In The Blank” , which means no multiple choice…So, I had to wake up this morning and retest.. I scored a 97.5% on the retest, which was a relief, because I was very close to coming home. I asked my instructor to investigate further into the scoring (because I didn’t think I scored a 55%) but she blew me off.. At around 10.30am, she called me out into the hallway and informed me that my scores were “mysteriously” switched with another students and that she was sorry. Oh, and that my lower score would be the one that counted. I am feeling a bit vindicated right now.
• Just before dinner last night, SSG Scheckman (another NCO in my unit who is here at the school with me) asked me to try and fix her smoke detector because it was beeping loudly every 4 minutes, leaving here awake at night. As I was fiddling with it (standing on a chair with a screwdriver), I determined that it could not be fixed by me and that I should put it all back together and goto dinner..Just as I reached this realization and started pushing the housing back into the ceiling, the entire floors fire alarm went off and the entire unit (hundreds of soldiers) were forced to evacuate onto the basketball court. Apparently, the fire department had to come and turn off the alarm. I wasn’t there because I got the hell out of there to get some dinner (I missed it because I was busy getting counseled for failing my exam).
• And now, I still have to meet with the Company 1SG because I marked “My SGL did not assist me in retraining for this test” on my counseling statement. (My SGL is my instructor). Also, she blew me off when I asked to have her look into my grade, which would have alleviated this entire problem.
• So the day is still young! I’ll let everyone know how it turns out.

BEST

- Joe

Here’s a picture of me and my Orthodontist, Dr. Herbert M. Hughes.

Unlike my last post, I know exactly why i’m excited now…

First off, i’ve discovered Apple. Instead of just being a shareholder, I decided to purchase a Mac. I got a free iPod and Color Printer with it and it came in the mail after 2 weeks of assembly and shipment from China. It took a week or so for me to get the time to configure it, and over this past weekend, I successfully transferred all of my documents and email to it. I am very pleased to say the least. Having been a “PC” person my entire life, and being an active .Net developer, this is as much a surprise to you as it is to me. Outwardly, I must be the most anti-mac person out there, yet I am mesmerized by their simple and powerful software. I heard someone somewhere say that PCs are for geeks and Mac’s are for people. It didn’t make sense until this weekend. I can’t wait for Leopard to come out. Hopefully, my measly one share of Apple will go up.

Secondly, I discovered a band called “The Arcade Fire“. Their only detractor is that they are from Canada. As Grandpa Joe would say “it takes all kinds” so I’ll have to forgive them.

And Lastly, my co-workers played a nasty joke on me today. I received an email from “my bosses boss” at around 7am this morning. In it, it outlined how one of my co-workers had approached the customer and my boss asking if he could take over as the Team Lead. Being a high-speed former Marine, one could expect this sort of pro-activeness, however it simply (and rightfully) did not make any sense. To top that off, my government boss supported it! So, as I was crafting a nasty email in response, my boss invited me to a conference room so we could hash it out…He could barely keep himself contained. He admitted that it was all a ruse just to get me fired up and ease some of the work-related tension and build esprit-de-corps.

I called them a bunch of assholes and laughed it off. As funny as it was, my day was ruined and I got nothing done. I spent the rest of today watching Judge Judy on Youtube (which is quite amusing).

Otherwise, same old same old here.

BEST

Joe