How do you handle giving constructive feedback to teachers.

My children attend the extended care program at their grade-school. Since I work full time, I can’t be home at 3:30pm when they would get out of school, so I sought a school that offered on site after school care. The private catholic grade school we picked had such a program. I have always been happy with it. I like the teachers. I know my children are safe. My kids can finish their homework with help from the teachers who work the extended care, spend time with their friends, and watch some after school television.

Last night, when I picked them up, I immediately noticed that my son’s left eyebrow was swollen up huge! He explained that he and another child had collided as he made his way past where the kids were playing basketball. It was just an accident, but he banged heads with the other child hard enough to cause a big old goose egg right above his eye. It was so swollen that his he was squinting just a touch.

I asked what the teachers who work extended care did to help and he let me know that, as usual, they didn’t see it happen and had no idea. I immediately walked him over to one of the teachers, pointed out the swollen eye, and asked if they had ice or something to put on it. They were very accommodating, got the ice pack, and asked if he was ok. They stressed that they can’t see everything and he needs to tell them if something like this happens.

On our way home I asked why he didn’t tell the teachers, and he answered that it was for two reasons. First, in the past when he’s asked to use the bathroom, he’s been told to wait and not interrupt their conversations. And second, he didn’t want to get the other boy in trouble. It was entirely an accident. They just weren’t looking when they collided. My son just isn’t one to cause a fuss about things.

I wrangled with how to handle this situation all night. I didn’t want to get the teachers in trouble, and I do know how hard it is to keep an eye on two children let alone a whole gym full of children in ages ranging from preschool to eigth grade. The extended care program is essential to me, and I have been very happy with the service. However, from my past experience on the board of trustees at my children’s daycare, I do also know that sometimes teachers and care givers can use gentle reminders to keep their eye on the children.

So, with that in mind, and laying out all of those caveats, I talked to the Principal this morning after I dropped my children off. I asked him for only five minutes of his time, so he could make the first bell announcements, and I stressed that I love his staff and that I am overall very happy with their care of my children after school. But I wanted him to know that sometimes they aren’t paying as much attention as, perhaps, they should.

He thanked me for bringing it to his attention and said that we can all use small reminders from time to time.

How would you have handled it? I hope that the teachers don’t feel as though I’ve dumped on them. They do a great job, and this was one mistake, but it followed a pattern of distraction that I worry could result in a larger accident occurring.

We shall see what this afternoon’s extended care pick up brings.

RSM: eBooks and physical books, my dream solution

I am a gadget girl. I love gadgets. I love anything that Apple makes but I also just love gadgets. I had a Palm V back when they first came out. I have a Barnes and Noble 3G + WiFi eInk nook (the version before the Touch) and have been thinking about the Nook Color even though I already have two iPads. I have the original iPhone, the original iPad, and several versions after.

Yet, I also dearly love books and the feel of paper in my hands. I will read a physical book over an electronic book if given the choice. If I am traveling, spending time waiting in a doctor’s office, etc. I appreciate the convenience of having books in my iPad (or the nook). But in the end, I want a physical book. I have more faith that the books sitting in my library will still be there in 10 years than I do in Amazon or Barnes and Noble or even the ePub format itself. For all the embracing I have done of digital technology, I still feel that digital media and digital content is fleeting and non-permanent. Books are moreso. I have books I inherited from my grandparents. I hope to pass some of my books along to my grandchildren. I don’t see the same thing happening with eBooks.

For me, eBooks are easy to carry but not archival. I use my nook to check out eBooks from the library that I want to read but don’t necessarily want to own. Books I own I reread the same way that DVDs I own are movies I want to be able to watch again and again. I guess that in the simplest terms, for me, digital content is for renting, physical content is for owning.

Reading on a friend/blogger I follow’s facebook status today, her publisher, ECW Press, has just announced that you can get a free eBook copy of any of their books when you buy the physical book. You can’t go back and get eBooks of past books you purchased, but starting today, with the proof of purchase, you get an eBook to go with your physical book. That is awesome.I love this independent publisher for doing this and I plan on supporting them like crazy now, especially since I’ve been meaning to buy Nikki’s Finding Lost series of books on the Series Lost.

I’ve been saying to anyone who will listen that Amazon should have offered free eBooks with the purchase of a physical book from the day it launched the first kindle. They easily know what books I buy. It would be simple to give me the eBook as well. I know, then they can’t change twice for the same content like they do now. The thing is, with me, they don’t. I buy either the physical book or the eBook. More often then not, I just buy the physical book.

The only eBook I bought in addition to the physical book was the Steve Jobs Biography. That one, out of respect or homage to Mr. Jobs, sits on my night stand and also in my iPad’s iBook shelf.

In the same way that I only buy Disney DVDs that include the digital copy, I’d spend an additional dollar to buy a book that came with an eBook download code. I am not sure if the industry will ever get there, but as a consumer who likes to own actual books, but who’d like to take them on travel with her in her iPad, this is a model I would love to see happen. I am not sure what barriers there are in the industry to make this happen, or even how much theft might result, but as an honest consumer, this is what I’d love to see.

Books are great. I want there to always be books.

I think eBooks and paper books can live in harmony. At least they do in my house.
RSM.

Three Little Kittens

It all started when I went out to feed our outdoor cat, KeeKee, yesterday morning.

For some background, we were adopted this summer by an old lady cat, and I’ve made her a nice heated outdoor home on our porch so she can weather this winter. Since she arrived, she’s back to her healthy weight, and while she used to just sit in our bushes all day long over the summer, now she spends all day off in the woods doing her thing, and only comes back for meals and to sleep in her shelter overnight.

It’s a good life and I am happy I can provide it for her. If someone is going to dump a sweet cat in the country, the least I can do is make her a nice home to compensate.

Back to yesterday morning.

When I was feeding KeeKee, I heard the faintest of mews coming from under the porch. It was so faint, in fact, that I thought I was hearing wrong and that I had mistaken a creak for a mew. Until it mewed again. Yup, that sure sounded like a kitten. So, I walked down the steps and what should poke it’s head out from under them but a tiny black and white kitten.

He was adorable.

We already have one cat inside, and one cat outside. My husband is indulgent but only so far. There is no way I am bringing another kitten inside. So I put out more food. Gave it some hugs (it let me pick it up), and continued with the morning routine of getting the kids ready for school. It was a huge feet of deception that I was able to get them past the meowing kitty at the door and convince them that it was just the old outdoor cat.

I worried about this little kitten all day at work. How was I going to take care of it and keep it from the kids. As anyone who knows me will attest, I am horrible at lying. I knew that was out of the question. My decision was made. I’d tell the kids when we got home, then I’d walk to the neighbors houses to see if anyone lost a kitten. Perhaps this little guy was an escapee and his children were looking for him/her.

As soon as the kids saw the kitten, my son fell in love and my daughter freaked. My son is just like me and if everything were up to us, our house would be full of cats. My daughter is a bit reserved when it comes to animals and she has to warm up to them as much as they have to warm up to her.

I went around to the neighbors houses who were home and none of them claimed this little kitten, although all of them thought he/she was adorable. How can you not? It is a fundamental fact that kittens are cute. It is natures way of protecting them. Having no luck, I returned home, put out more food for the kitten and KeeKee, and fed my kids dinner.

After dinner, then insisted on coming with me to the last house I had not yet knocked on. We brought the kitten with us and it meowed and meowed. We’d just started up our neighbors driveway when a meow answered back and out from the bushes another identical black and white kitten dashed toward us.

Now there were two little kittens.

We made our way up the neighbor’s driveway with two little kittens and two very excited children, only to find them still not home. So we returned to our home. Setting down the two kittens now with KeeKee (who gave me a look that can only say “seriously?!”), we went inside to finish up the kids homework. When asked if they could go back outside to see the kittens again, I said they had to finish their homework first.

In what was a record for them, they finished their homework, got on their pajamas, put away their toys, and got coats, slippers, and mittens on to go back outside. The kitten motivation sure is something.

As my son opened the door he said “Mom, you have to see this. Now there are three kittens.”

“What? Three kittens?” what my incredulous reply.

“Yup. Three kittens.” he answers.

And there were. A third little black and white but fluffy kitten had joined the first two short haired black and white kittens. It was obvious that these three are siblings from the way they wrestle and play together. I set out more food and the kids and I spent about a half hour in the cold playing with the kittens on the porch. Setting out a box, blanket and more food, we told them goodnight and that we’d see them in the morning.

Although KeeKee the outdoor old lady cat has a heated shelter, she didn’t invite the kittens in to stay with her. I am just happy that aside from a hiss or two, she’s been fairly “whatever” about the arrival of these interlopers. She’s not pleased that they are eating out of her foodbowl, but she’s not doing anything to stop them.

The kittens were still there this morning, waiting for more food and playtime from my kids. The weather is going to get up to the 50s today, so they will be ok, but it’s going to be frigid by the end of the week. The countdown begins. Time to find these babies a home.

My son wishes it could be with us, but even I can’t get my husband to accept three more cats.

Wish us luck!
RSM

RSM Reprint: Girls Can Train Their Dragons Too!

Reprinted with permission by Foreverparenting.com from March 2010

Originally, I wrote the column below for a parenting site called GNMParents.com. Since then, the site has sort of gone out of business, and one of its primary editors is working to set up a new parenting site with new goals and wonderful authors. I haven’t had time enough to become a regular columnist there yet but I do love the site. If you get a chance please, visit the link above and give them a little love.

The idea for the column came from my inability to find toys for my daughter. Sadly, I don’t think much has changed, especially in the wake of Lego’s new Friends line of toys aimed for girls (I will be writing about them shortly). You can read the rest after the dashes.

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We took the kids to see the new Dreamworks movie: How To Train Your Dragon this weekend. To say that they (and I) loved it, would be an understatement. The dragon reminded us of our now teenage kitten. The lead, Hiccup, was easy to relate to, and, although the action was a bit intense, the morals: be true to who you are (to the children), and accept your children for who they are (to the parents), were subtle and significant.

So, as is often my response to a movie I like, I headed out to my nearest toy store in search of Dragon toys. I easily found the toy of the titular Dragon, and of Hiccup (who trains him). Who I didn’t find was the main female character, Astrid Hofferson: the one who’s tough and who stands by the lead when he doubts himself. She kicked butt throughout the movie: both as a dragon-slayer in training, and also as a friend.

They don’t even make an action figure of her.

I knew I wouldn’t find one before going to the store, because I’d searched online over the weekend. Worse, though, I knew I wouldn’t find a figure of her before I even started searching, because of past experience.

I grew up collecting action figures. My Star Wars collection still sits in a box in the basement (and still grows from time to time — yes, I know I am an adult). Then, as now, the one thing that angers me is the lack of action figures of the female characters. Try to find Amidala or even Princess Leia, and you’ll probably have to turn to e-Bay rather than your local toy store.

This is my open plea to all those toy manufacturers out there. You have an audience in the girls who go to your “action” movies, and if you’d just make figures of the women you portray, we’d buy them! We are hungry for non-Barbie action heroes. You know, not just the Lara Kroft kind, who are really designed for boys anyway. Make them, sell them, I guarentee you’ve got a market you still haven’t captured.

Until then, I remain disappointed, for myself and for my daughter.

Setting up the Apple TV: Part 3, Apple’s Remote app

Continuing the series (part 1, installation, and part 2, Airplay) on setting up our new Apple TV at home, this post will sum up my thoughts of an app I had known about but since I didn’t own an Apple TV when it was released, had completely forgotten about. Apple has a tiny app (free) in the app store called Apple Remote, and it does just what it’s name implies. It turns your iOS device (iPhone, and, I presume, iPad, and iPod touch) into a remote to control your Apple TV.

Using the Apple Remote app came out of a fit of laziness. I was sitting on the couch with my daughter, and the Apple TV’s actual remote control (a beautiful and slender silver stick with a click wheel similar to the original iPods) was sitting across the room next to the TV. It was then that I remembered that Apple had an app called Remote and I immediately downloaded it to my iPhone4.

Upon first tapping the app, with the iPhone already on our local wi-fi network, it immediately found the home sharing that I’d set up via iTunes on my MacBook, and also subscribed to by our Apple TV. Once I’d logged into the home sharing, taping the screen turned on (or, more correctly, woke from sleep) the Apple TV. After it woke up, I saw the Apple TV navigation titles on the screen that are controllable by the left/right/up/down clicks on the silver remote’s click wheel. The controls on the Remote app are super simple. You swipe left right, up or down, to move a cursor on the screen in that large black open area in the center of the iOS device’s screen. The “Tap to Navigate” directional arrows on the image to the left are exactly what you’d see. Once you have moved the curser over what you want to choose, you simply tap on the iPhone’s screen. Tapping does the select.

I was, again, surprised at how easy it was to work. So easy, in fact, that my six year old daughter immediately took the iPhone from me and went about to scrolling through the list of movies we were streaming from my computer via Home Sharing (details coming soon) to pick out the movie she wanted to see (Ella Enchanted for those interested).

I know I am an Apple fan girl from way back, but it’s easy to see why when the things that Apple makes just work. I understand the hacker culture’s need to be able to jailbreak and tear apart the tech that they buy, but I also totally appreciate the culture of insanely great products that just work instilled into Apple’s design philosophy by Steve Jobs. The Apple TV and associated Apple remote all are two bits of technology that I know my Mom and Step Dad would be able to master is short order.

Whether or not Apple has the best TV ever in development for 2012, I am still happy we took the plunge with this huge Panasonic TV with the second gen Apple TV.

Enjoy,
RSM.

The End of 2011: Saying Goodbye to Steve Jobs

I have been thinking on whether or not I’d share with you my feelings on the loss of Steve Jobs. As a huge Mac and Apple fan since forever (and a vocal one to be sure), I felt it was my duty to chime in with something. It is fitting that I learned of Steve Jobs passing, via twitter, on my iPhone 4, a device I wouldn’t have and love if it were not for the tenacious determination and genius of Mr. Steve Jobs.

I have been a long time Mac fanatic, and cannot even begin to express how my life, both as a professional and personally, has been impacted by the tools and vision brought to the world by Apple. I don’t think I’d have become half the rocket scientist I am now, if I hadn’t been lucky enough to join a group here at NASA that was heavily focused on using Macs to think different. It is no small coincidence that the man who is now my husband was also the one who led the charge in that branch to move entirely to Macs. Our kids are as comfortable using iOS devices as I was using a pen and paper when I was growing up. We have more functioning Macs and Apple devices in our house then we have people in our family.

Thank you Apple and thank you Steve Jobs, for giving me the tools to become better than I thought I could be. Not to mention, giving my children a future where technology is something intuitive.

You will be missed, but never forgotten.

RIP
RSM

Setting up the Apple TV: Part 2, Airplay

Continuing the posts on how we are getting along with out AppleTV, this article will focus on one of its functions: Airplay. We have been using the predecessor to Airplay, called AirTunes when it was audio only, for a while now to stream music from my husband’s iMac to our surround sound system. AirTunes streaming is accomplished by adding up an Apple Airport Express to your wireless network. Once you set up the Express, you will see it as one of the destination options in iTunes music output. You can choose either Computer, the Airport Express network name, or both.

Airplay operates very similarly. You must be running iOS 4.2 or later (in the case of our setup, all of our iPhones, iPads and the Apple TV have been updated to run the latest version of their iOS that they can run. Both the iPhone 4 and iPads (both 1st and 2nd gen) are running iOS 5. I actually don’t know what version the Apple TV is running. Sounds like an area for more research.

Here is what I did last night to display the screen of my iPad2 onto the HDTV using Apple TV and Airplay.
1. Turn on the Apple TV.
2. Switch the input on the HDTV so that it’s using the output from the Apple TV.
3. Go to your iPad, iPhone, etc. and double tap the home button. This brings up the mini-doc display of all apps that are running. Swipe to the right, pulling back on the controls (sound, etc).
4. You will see the Airplay icon which looks like a rectangle with a small triangle on the bottom. The icon sort of looks like an HD tv with the triangle pointing at it.
5. Choose where you want to display your iPad (or iPhone) display. In this case I chose the network name we gave the Apple TV when we set it up. You can choose to mirror the display at this time by sliding a button to “on”.

That was it. With that, because I checked the button for mirroring to on, the display of the iPad was mirrored onto the HD TV. The aspect ratio of the iPad isn’t as big as the HD aspect, so the image was a much smaller near square in the center of the large rectangular display of the television. What displayed was exactly the screen of the iPad. My daughter immediately grabbed the iPad2 out of my hands and began playing any and all of her games. She was delighted when Where’s my Water was up there, larger than life.

What I really wanted to try was streaming video via the ABC player to the television. I needed to catch up on Once Upon a Time, but I’m not willing to purchase all of the episodes. I’ll most likely buy the complete season on DVD when it comes out. I’d been watching it via the ABC player on the iPad2 at night on my own, but I wanted to share it with my husband.

It worked without a hitch with two exceptions. First, because this was mirroring, the image didn’t fill the entire HD TV screen. Next time I will not turn mirroring on, which should adjust the aspect ratio on the television itself. Mirroring definitely doesn’t take advantage of this hugeness that is the TV. Second, I did notice that there was just a fraction of a delay in the image rendering on the television over what the iPad display was showing. I don’t know if this is our home’s wireless network (we are still running a snow Airport Base Station), or the slowness of our cable internet (we live out in the sticks and are served by a small town cable provider) or some affectation of AirPlay itself. I will have to do more research to see which, if any, might be the cause.

I was pleasantly surprised (although I shouldn’t have been) with how seamlessly the AirPlay worked. I already knew that AirTunes worked well, so I should have anticipated this to work just as well.

All in all, so far the Apple TV has been a fairly good deal. Priced at $99, it was definitely worth taking a chance on just to test it out. I’m looking forward to continuing setting up our brave new HD entertainment center, and I think the Apple TV was a good addition.

Part 3: Streaming via iTunes Home Sharing will be coming up soon.
RSM.

Setting up the Apple TV: Part 1, installation

I am still amazed that the 2nd Generation Apple TV my husband and I ordered as our Christmas present to each other arrived at our house less than 24 hours after we’d ordered it. It was a last minute decision, the day before Christmas Eve, and we pretty much expected it to arrive after the holiday. Low and behold, I received an email before even going to bed that night that it has shipped. The Fed Ex truck came to our house by lunch time the next day. That is service. I don’t know where Apple shipped it from, but with two Apple stores in my area (one on each side of town) perhaps Apple uses the stores to do mail orders as well.

That having been said, I was also amazed at how tiny the Apple TV actually is. I expected a box about the size of the original Airport base station, but what came in side the package was tiny. The packaging is thinner than the box the iPhone4 comes in, and only slightly wider. This thing is tiny.

We opened it, and gently pealed off the black tape that covered all of the ports to protect them in shipping. As always, Apple packages their gadgets with much love and care. I have never opened electronics more beautifully packaged than my Apple products.

From the time we opened the cardboard box, through unwrapping and unpackaging the the Apple TV itself, to hooking it up to the HDTV via an HDMI cable, the whole installation took minutes. While I did go to Apple’s site to fine the Apple TV manual (they stopped putting manuals in the boxes with the products years ago), I didn’t read it (yet). Putting a link in this article is as much for my future use as for the reader.

A word of caution to those purchasing the Apple TV, Apple does not include an HDMI cable in the box, so if you don’t already have one, you will need to purchase one. The only things that come in the box are the Apple TV itself, a power cord, and a tiny Apple remote. My husband had already purchased one at the time of ordering the HD TV itself. Cables have a huge markup, so as much as I love Apple, I wouldn’t recommend buying the HDMI cable from them directly.

The only additional setup set was to go into the HDTV’s inputs selector, turn on the power on the Apple TV and program into the HDTVs system that the HDMI input was coming from the Apple TV.

That’s the installation. Next up will be the setup to get content through the Apple TV onto the TV. I’ve tried both streaming via iTunes from my MacBook, as well as Airplay from both my iPad2 and my iPhone4. Spoiling the end of the story, they all just worked.

Enjoy.
RSM.

Adventures in HD TV land

Our family has finally joined the rest of most families in America who have already upgraded their living rooms with an HD TV. My mother in law treated us to the Panasonic HD TV that my Rocket Scientist husband spent many many hours researching, as our Christmas present this year. We ordered in on Black Friday via Amazon and have already opened it and hooked it up to our DVR. Now, the adventure begins.

I am not opposed to having a huge TV but I must admit that I am still taken aback by how really large it is. I almost don’t want to sit in the TV room with it to watch it. I’ve spent most of my viewing time doing so from the kitchen which overlooks the TV room. That distance seems to take the edge off the hugeness factor. Perhaps I am just getting old.

Now that we have it, we are taking the baby steps to hook it up and create the entertainment center around it. Physically it’s sitting atop our entertainment unit until the new one we ordered from Amish country is finished. That’s what’s in the photo associated with this article and the juxtaposition of how large this TV is with how very quaint our old TV is makes me laugh.

Stepping back, just what TV did we purchase. We bought the Panasonic VIERA® 50″ Class S30 Series. It is pretty, and I have always been a fan of Panasonic’s electronics.

Next up, how to get movies and content onto this device. To first order, we have it hooked via component video to our DVR with it’s small selection of digital HD channels. Most of our stations do not have an HD option, so the large format adds a bit of grainyess to the image.

To start, I ordered an Apple TV this morning as a Christmas present from the husband and I to each other. An informal poll of four folks around work over the last two weeks who all have Apple TVs yielded 100% satisfaction results. Since the Apple TV is about the only product by Apple that we don’t own, it’s about time we did. Having typed all this, just watch as Apple releases something new in the Apple TV area the first two months of 2012.

I will report back on how we set the HD TV and the Apple TV up in a subsequent post. I’m curious to see how the streaming between my iPad, iPhone, and MacBook iTunes account and the Apple TV works.

Enjoy
RSM.

Reflections on the end of the 2011

Today is the first day of winter, Yule in the Pagan calendar, and the start of the lengthening of our days. Seems like a perfect time to post a little bit here to the blog that I have neglected for a couple of months now. I apologize to those few readers who have stopped by this last week to see what I might have posted.

This has been an interesting year. I spent a major part of it in a detail position as a branch chief. That’s Rocket Scientist speak for serving temporarily in a promotion as a manager. Because it was only a detail and not a full blown promotion, I had all the responsibility for my people but no real power to make decisions or cause things to happen. It was a good run, though, and I was able to learn whether I liked being a manager (I did). In spite of the limited “power,” I was able to help my branch stay afloat in the chaos that is where I work. My own branch chief has been called higher up to help fill other needs. I don’t know when she will return, and I am grateful that she asked that I serve in her place.

The bad part of spending time being a manager was that I internalized a lot of stress, so much so that my hair started to fall out. If you know me, you know this is huge. I’ve had hair almost down to the small of my back for most of my adult life. A month ago, I had my husband cut 8 inches off because it looked so thin. Eight inches because that is the minimum needed to donate. I think I’ve come to terms with it (losing the hair) but have yet to fully relax and unwind.

At the end of the year, as I look toward a new year with a fresh start, my promise to myself is to work harder on that. Work harder on relaxing. In the coming year, I may or may not be able to get into management. There is so much up in the air at work. I do know I liked it but I also know that I let things get to me. Lesson learned. Relaxation is key to well being. To be the best I can be, I must be kind to myself. Those are things I already knew but was caught by surprise how little I actually put them into practice.

My wish to all of you reading this is to also be kind to yourselves. In everything you do, go ahead and do your very best. That’s all that you can ask. After that, accept the outcome however it falls. If you’ve done your best, you have nothing to worry about and nothing to be ashamed of. Worry will make your hair fall out. I am proof of that.

Thankfully, I have a loving family and super awesome kids to focus on. That’s what I’ve been doing, and it is helping. They are the light of my life, and my main reason for being.

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate, whether it’s for Baby Jesus or Santa. Happy Hanukkah to those who are celebrating the festival of lights. Happy Yule to my pagan friends. And best wishes for the new year to everyone.

All my best.
RSM.