A terrible little story

Our teacher is a super hero. We found out by accident, when she destroyed the robot that tried to crush our school. We were very grateful that she saved our lives. We were less grateful that she saved the school. But, she’s a teacher, so we guess that means she needed to save her job. Even super heros need to eat.

Mr. Malone, the principle, didn’t see her change into a super hero. He’s kind of a jerk, so we didn’t tell him. After all, she doesn’t like him either.

You want to know what happened? Okay, I’ll tell you.

It was Wednesday. Ms. Goodhew was teaching us about polynomials (If you don’t know what a polynomial is, don’t worry; we don’t know, either). Ms. Goodhew is our math teacher. She smells like mothballs and old-lady mints. We are really nice to her, because she had a really bad year last year. Something about being locked in a closet for 6 hours. She doesn’t notice that we sneak out to buy sodas from the machine by the gym, and we stay quiet and pretend we’re learning something. Its a win-win!

We were all half asleep, waiting for the bell to ring, when we heard the first THOOM. It sounded pretty far away, like thunder. That wasn’t too wierd, but then it happened again, and again. And it was getting louder. Poor Ms. Goodhew just kept talking at the front of the room, while we all craned our necks to look out the window.

Miss Redwolf was with her class, outside. She teaches biology, and always drags her class outside on nice days. Sometimes she dresses up in her “Ceremony Clothes” with feathers in her hair and beaded mocasins. Those days are the best. Today she wore her normal teacher clothes, which was kind of a bummer. She looks really cool on Ceremony Clothes day. She was looking in the direction of the THOOMs, too, and then turned to get her class inside. We thought she was worried about rain.

The bell rang, and we all gathered our stuff and headed off to our next class. I had Miss Redwolf, and headed down to the biology labs. I didn’t run. Mr. Malone totally made that up. Anyway, when I got there, the rest of the class was getting settled, and Miss Redwolf was nowhere in sight. I got to my seat, happy that I wasn’t late. The THOOMs were getting really loud, now, so I was glad to be inside. Maybe we’d get to watch the thunderstorm!

Only one problem with that plan. It wasn’t a thunderstorm. It was a giant robot. Who ever heard of a giant robot attacking a school? That only happens in cheesy PBS cartoons! Well, now it washappening to us. The other girls started screaming. The only reason I didn’t was because I was too scared. Then Miss Redwolf showed up.

She was outside. Her hair was in her usual braids, but her normal teacher clothes were gone, and she was wearing some kind of crazy superhero outfit, complete with a mask. It was red and yellow. At least she didn’t have a cape. I knew it was her because she still had a feather in her hair. She jumped into the air, and started fighting the robot.

Watching our teacher fight a robot was so weird. Even wierder that she was winning! Every body else hid on the other side of the room. I ran to the window to watch. When I didn’t die immediately, some of the other kids came over to watch, too.

After a few minutes, the robot was in pieces on the ground. A hand here, a foot there. The head wound up in Wisconsin, I think, the news wasn’t too clear on that. Miss Redwolf disappeared, and then walked into our classroom wearing her normal teacher clothes. She still had the feather in her hair. She saw us, staring at the window, and froze for a second. We just got back to our seats and we all pretended that nothing had happened. We were used to covering for Ms. Goodhew, anyway.

Mr. Malone had a fit over it. Apparently one of the legs destroyed the football field. He started giving everyone detention, but since Miss Redwolf was the teacher on duty, nobody really minded. At least we didn’t have to sit through any more boring football games! After all, real men play rugby.

Mobile Trash Incinerator

Charred utility pole, and ash on the pavement
The utility pole was totally charred – a giant stick of charcoal

First, I have to get this out: it wasn’t because of us.  I swear.

The garbage truck caught fire a few house down from us.  Not like a little fire in the back from someone tossing fireplace ashes in their bin — oh no.  It was the recycling truck itself.  The cab was engulfed in flames.

Megh took some photos of the event while it was happening.  The driver got out safely, and nobody else was hurt, but the truck was a total loss.

One house has melted siding.  The house across the street lost power as the flames burned through the power lines.  And I foresee a new utility pole in our near future as the existing pole is charred to a cinder.

Our cans are still sitting on the curb waiting to be picked up.  Hopefully it gets taken tomorrow but I’m sure this event puts the carting company in a tough position with trucks, so who knows.

Grade Five School Concert

Alpha played a significant part in her school concert, singing the opening of a song with a small group of students.  She sang well – she may have a future in chorus.

Alpha and five other students sing the opening to a song during their school concert
Alpha and five other students prepare to sing the song opening during their school concert

The rest of the concert was well done, too.  The usual mix of kids that sing with the group and kids that stand there and look around.  Alpha was in the former group.  (I was almost always in the latter group.)

Memorial Day

Kids love parades.  My kids love parades so much they could think of nothing better than to march in a parade, and the opportunity presented itself when their karate dojo announced that it was going to be in the Wilmington Memorial Day parade.

This was our first time with the Wilmington parade.  Last year we went back to Connecticut for Memorial Day.

Parade line
The Academy of Traditional Karate parade line

I solo-parented (Megh was working at the LEGO store) and stationed myself near the end of the route.  I waited for the kids to pass, then waited for them to finish so I could pick them up.  It was a long parade: somehow we wound up with the Boston Shriners (and their silly go-carts) in addition to our local Masonic chapter, so the parade took a half hour to arrive and three quarters of an hour after that to finish passing by.

Frederick, MD

Megh, Joan, and Kelly
Megh, Joan, and Kelly

My sister-in-law, Kelly, earned her Masters in Environmental Education from Hood College in Frederick, MD.  Road trip!

Day 0:

We rolled into town on Friday morning, 1 AM.  (I would have stopped earlier and finished the drive in the morning but arrangements had been made.)  Delaware was the worst, as usual — expensive tolls and traffic problems, even at midnight.  I hate Delaware.

Day 1: Laying Low

After a late start, breakfast, and a quick dip in the motel pool, we visited Kelly at work – the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Historic Park.

View across Antietam valley
Antietam Battlefields, MD

An excellent lunch in town at the Desert Rose Café, then a visit to Antietam (a quick hop skip and jump down the road).
I, unfortunately, took a nap in our car while the rest of the group did the self-driven tour in Joan’s car, but I did capture a great photo from the visitor’s center.

Day 2: Graduation Ceremony

We laid low in the morning, except for an egg and sausage casserole that Kelly made which couldn’t be beat.

Hood college has a beautiful campus. The ceremony was appropriately timed and the weather was beautiful.
Dinner was at a local brew pub, Barley and Hops. Their porter was delicious.

Day 3: Hiking and Gettysburg

Cunningham Falls State Park, MD
Cunningham Falls State Park, MD

We went to Cunningham Falls with a huge crew: Tim, Kelly and Damien; Joan; Jerry and Karol (Kelly’s parents);  Max, Manmeet, Uma, and Simon (cousins and their children).  Plus ourselves.

We split two ways and took two different trails – the easy and hard ways.  They meet at the falls (pictured).

Afterwards, since we were so close, we headed over to Gettysburg and walked to the “bloody wall” from the museum.  The kids kept going like troopers.

 

Adults sitting on a rock and being boring
The adults, doing adult things, at Cunningham Falls

Jury Duty

I was called for jury duty today. I’ve never served on a jury before and, stroke of luck, I still haven’t – the required number of jury seats were filled before my number was called. I’m still exempt from serving for another three years, though!

It’s a shame, really – after I saw the case I was actually looking forward to being on the jury (just a little).  It would have been a same day trial.  I’ve never seen a trial before, and I briefly considered staying and watching as a member of the community, but I was hungry and it was almost lunch time and I wanted to eat with Megh if I could (which I did).

I was surprised by the friendliness of the court staff.  One would think that stepping newbies through the system two or three days per week would make them tired of the same stupid routine, but everyone we (the prospective jurors) interacted with was friendly and courteous.  They behaved professionally  — even with the one guy who was apparently stoned for jury duty.  He was interviewed but ultimately not placed in the jury.

The Best Wedding Invitation in Ages

My second cousin, once removed (I think) is getting married.  I couldn’t be happier for the couple, but when I saw the invitation my jaw just about dropped.  I wish we could go – if the invitation is any guide, it’s going to be an excellent party.  With bacon!

I mean, just look at the excellent style!
I mean, just look at the excellent style!

Transferring Large Files

Linux has an impressive tool set, if you know how to use it.  The  philosophy of using simple tools that do one job (but do it well) with the ability to chain commands together using pipes creates a powerful system.

Everyone has to transfer large files across the network on occasion.  scp is an easy choice most of the time, but if you’re working with small or old machines the CPU will be a bottleneck due to encryption.

There are several alternatives to scp, if you don’t need encryption.  These aren’t safe on the open internet but should be acceptable on private networks.  TFTP and rsync come to mind, but they have their limitations.

  • tftp is generally limited to 4 gig files
  • rsync either requires setting up an rsync service, or piping through ssh

My new personal favorite is netcat-as-a-server.  It’s a little more complicated to set up than scp or ftp but wins for overall simplicity and speed of transfer.

netcat doesn’t provide much output, so we’ll put it together with pv (pipeviewer) to tattle on bytes read and written.

First, on the sending machine (the machine with the file), we’ll set up netcat to listen on port 4200, and pv will give us progress updates:
pv -pet really.big.file | nc -q 1 -l -p 4200

  • pv -p prints a progress bar, -e displays ETA, -t enables the elapsed time
  • nc -q 1 quits 1 second after EOF, -l 4200 listens on port 4200

Without the -q switch, the sender will have to be killed with control-c or similar.

On the receiver (the machine that wants the file) netcat will read all bytes until the sender disconnects:
nc file.server.net 4200 | pv -b > really.big.file

  • nc will stream all bytes from file.server.net, port 4200
  • -b turns on the byte counter

Once the file is done transferring, both sides will shut down.

Alpha’s First Dressage Show

Alpha rode in her first official dressage show this morning. She did really well, we thought.  Here is a link to the video (we’ll embed it later):

http://youtu.be/q0PPkxmBdUE

STEM Night 2014

Our school system sponsored a ‘Family STEM Night’.  Being nerds, of course we went.  Two hours of playing with stuff!

20140501 owl pellet
Dissecting an owl pellet

The coolest table was all about dissecting owl pellets.  I helped Beta uncover a vole (we think it was a vole – it could have been a small rat, the jaws are pretty similar).

There were also tables with:

  • magnets and electricity, with little motors and big batteries you could play with
  • growing plants (with a seed and a cup of dirt)
  • making goo (not sure about the science aspect, and it was sponsored by Pfizer so it’s even more dubious, but it was fun)
  • making a levitating “train” with magnets and a fixed track
  • making structures using toothpicks and marshmallows
  • blowing up peeps and boiling cold water with a vacuum and a bell jar (my second favorite, I should have taken a pic)
  • robots, with a large mobile robot, a roomba, and a small r/c vehicle for the kids to try (with a video feed in the controller, woo!)
  • using strobe lights, with a stream of green-colored water dripping in time with the strobe (so the drips appeared to be stationary)
Strobe light on continuous liquid drips
Thanks to the strobe light, the picture documents what we saw – stationary drops of water

One dark spot: a table that was supposed to be about archaeology but it was muddled, including this dubious definition:

Archeological Dig

Next Generation Science Standard:

3-LS4-1. Use fossils to describe types of organisms and their environments that existed long ago and compare those to living organisms and their environments.  Recognize that most kinds of plants and animals that once lived on Earth are no longer found anywhere.

Archeological Dig Next Generation Science Standard: 3-LS4-1. Use fossils to describe types of organisms and their environments that existed long ago and compare those to living organisms and their environments. Recognize that most kinds of plants and animals that once lived on Earth are no longer found anywhere.
Bad science at the STEM Fair. Can you see what’s wrong with this definition?

Well, the kids had fun and didn’t notice the mistakes.  Alpha and Beta both left talking about going into biology – which makes me happy.  And I guess the fair achieved it’s aims.

Oh, and there was a hovercraft.  It was not full of eels.