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Showing posts from October, 2011

MiCare Healthy Lifestyle fun run

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The MiCare Healthy Lifestyle 5k fun run is a new addition to the annual running calendar. The run is unique in featuring a health screening tent. I stopped by pre-race and checked my numbers. Heart rate 58 bpm, blood pressure 130/72, fasting blood sugar 101. Those last three numbers are not good. My son stayed with me longer and farther than ever before, running with me out to the Lidakida turn-around on the causeway. He finished hot on my heels at 31:06, thanks to his push I managed to just barely eke in under 30 minutes at 29:35. That is a PR for him, and a long time since I have seen a two as the leading digit. My son with race director Bong. My youngest daughter also joined the run, also pushing harder and faster than ever before. For the first time on the lower route, I met her while I was still on the causeway. We met just in front of JBI at the Edwin's place. Post-run poster posing. My son was the second under 12 to cross the finish line, good for a medal today

Reflection and Refraction

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Laboratory eleven began with placing a one dollar coin on top of a towel and under a beaker filled with water. The top of the beaker was covered with a ceramic floor tile. I then asked the class to come up and determine what coin was under the bottom of the beaker. Due to total internal reflection at the bottom, and refraction at the sides of the beaker, the coin is invisible. Then I put the coin in an empty dish basin at a distance of four meters. No one could see the coin: the side of the dishpan blocked their view. Then I filled the dishpan with water, and the students could now see the coin. This led to an explanation of apparent depth Ariel Maylea and Alden set up to measure the depth of the penny tallest of the graduated cylinders.   Moses and Gorang determine the apparent depth of the penny in the tallest cylinder. This term again I lined up the cylinders from shortest to tallest on the middle table. The board notes on the "index of reflection&quo

Thatching

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The class usually uses Nypa fruticans , called  parem in Pohnpeian. In some terms the class used the traditional material for Pohnpeian thatching, Metroxylon amicarum , but this requires cutting down the tree to access the fronds. Nypa fruticans can be obtained non-destructively from the plant. Maylanda Mikel demonstrates skill and speed in completing a section of thatch. In the above image she is removing the nohk . There are two styles of Pohnpeian thatching, doakoahs en Ruk and doakoahs en Pohnpei or simply doakoahs . Doak means "to pierce" with a needle-like object. Oahs is the Pohnpeian name for Metroxylon amicarum . The  nohk  is the back half of the midrib. Removing the  nohk  is necessary when using  oahs  due to the thick midrib. The  oahs  frondlet cracks and breaks unless this is done. Christlynn and Joesen In Chuuk pandanus is used for thatch, as well as coconut palm leaf. Coconut palm leaf has a reputation for a short life span across Microne

About the house and town

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Kacl money Akira and his cats First Joy lunch. The tables and chairs are a recent renovation.

Lubuntu 11.04 to 11.10 dist upgrade reversion to Unity

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Where a computer had been running Ubuntu 11.04 and the Unity desktop, and said computer was changed over to the Lubuntu 11.04 desktop using the Ubuntu Software Center, the computer reverts to Ubuntu with the Unity desktop on distribution upgrade to Ubuntu 11.10. Worse, the automatic log in is reset to user name and password required, in other words, the autologin is disabled in default.conf and dgod is re-enabled, even if one clicks on "keep" configuration file intact. Getting back to an automatic log in Lubuntu 11.10 desktop is all but impossible - only loading Lubuntu 11.10 from a CD - a full reinstall, works to get back to Lubuntu. There is a partial work-around, but it leaves in place the splash screen. The issue appears to be the switch to the lightDM desktop manager in 11.10, it usurps the lxdm desktop manager. The work around is described below. Upon restart after upgrade one will find oneself in the Ubuntu 11.10 Unity desktop, a desktop that remains infinite

Gall stone

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Checked in for abdominal discomfort, ultrasound reveals a gall stone. Juggling children was the nature of the week. Tuesday and the three were up at the college. A dear friend whomped up the most wonderful all organic spaghetti with salad and whole wheat muffins for the children one evening. A very happy customer! A couple nights later a noise in a cabinet at Genesis... ... and this is how babies arrive! Not from the stork but by popping out of cabinets in the surgical ward. No fear of either the dark nor enclosed spaces. In on a Sunday, removed on a Tuesday, discharged on Friday. The cause of the discomfort: a gall stone of some size. Water swirling at bath time. A ring of water off of the heel of a brush.

Vegetative morphology

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The SC 115 Ethnobotany students went on a vegetative morphology field walk. RinaRuth observes as I note the peltate attachment of the petiole on Merremia peltata . Clidemia hirta is appearing in the ethnobotanical garden. Claralyn, Trisha, Jeanette, Joanie, and Sagittate leaf of hard swamp taro, Cyrtosperma chamissionis . Piper ponapense with a cordate leaf shape. Noeleen demonstrates a use for the Nephrolepis fern.

Assessing cloud drawings

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Once again I turned to a team of professional crayon drawing evaluators to assist in evaluating the cloud drawings done in physical science laboratory eight . As they have in the past, the two of them discussed and argued the arrangement of the images. This term they worked using the descriptors in the marking rubric . From left to right the columns mark accuracy of the drawing with respect to shapes, forms, colors, and light source. From top to bottom marks composition, consistency of drawing style, and apparent effort made by the artist. Above, working in the three point column for composition. Comments added by the adjudicators on the post-it notes. Sometimes blunt, but then youth has its honesty. The next generation in training. Once a judge falls off the cliff at the edge of the rye field, they tend to be less brutally and openly honest in their comments. Comments that only a child in the rye field can get away with.