2008: All Downhill from Here

Yesterday, a former undergraduate student of mine sent me the following message:

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Subject: Thanks

Hi Ken,

I was just reading an article on Joel on Software (its from Jan 8th) about what people learn at Universities these days…and the comments that followed. I think that having taken the three classes I took with you I can say I was given a much better education than the picture he is painting. And I just wanted to say thanks for being a great Software Engineering professor. There are many interesting professors and courses at CU, but the students that take your classes that plan to work in this world are the lucky ones…

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And there you have it, since his message made my entire year, 2008 can do nothing but go downhill from here! ☺

Ken

P.S. Teachers of all stripes know how rare unsolicited comments like this one are, and so I just had to post it here to remind me that I occasionally receive them!

95 Cars

Today, while driving Lilja to her pre-school, I had to stop to let a train go by (not that I had much choice in the matter). To pass the time (7 minutes), we counted the graffiti-covered cars one-by-one until we hit the last one, 95 cars later!

It was fun to count with Lilja, as she got really excited by this opportunity to count with papa-loppa (as she calls me)... by the 50's she got really good counting the numbers in order "... 51 52 53 ...". The only problem she had was in the transition from one block of ten to the next (as would be expected). What I liked was that she would simply repeat a recently stated number while waiting for me to correct her... so she would say "67 68 69 68" and then switch to "71 72 73". :-)

The other funny thing was that she doesn't seem to like the number six because that was the most frequently dropped number "13 14 15 17 18".

She's a lot of fun!

Papa-Loppa

Speakers

During our house remodel in Fall 2006, we had our house "wired for sound" meaning that we had wires in the walls and faceplates in various corners of the house but... no speakers. Well, finally, at the beginning of January, we plunked down some money for two speakers and had them installed today in our family room!

And, now, we are rocking out at the Palen Anderson house! :-)

Its fun to watch Miles look around in awe at the sound seemingly coming out of nowhere and get a big grin on his face and do his baby dance! :-)

Rock on!

Ken

Another Poem by Max: I am Max

I am as quick as a cheetah.

I am as happy as a puppy.

I'm as nice as the cat, Tiger.

I'm as strong as a jaguar.

I'm as weak as a kitten.

I'm as loud as a lion.

I'm as quiet as a worm.

I'm as brave as a wolf.

I'm as shy as a cricket.

I'm as wild as a monkey.

Put them all together, and you've got ME!

Maxwell Anderson

[Ed. Tiger is a cat that lives across the street from us.]

Happy New Year!

Max stayed up to ring in the New Year this year... his first time that he made it to midnight fully awake. (He tried hard last year but fell asleep long before midnight.) He was bouncing up and down in excitement as we counted down the seconds!

Here's hoping that 2008 sees less war and more peace than we did in 2007. (We can always hope.)

Happy New Year everyone!

Ken