Sue and I are headed south to the warm state of Florida. While we are there we plan to take a boat to the bottom of the Keys and ride our tandem back to the mainland.
If any of you readers would like for us to drop in on our way south, we would love to if it fits into our planned approximate course.
Just let us know. Have a great March here in the subarctic!
I have lost many friends to this horrible disease. If you know someone or are personally involved with terminal cancer you should listen to this show. Although this treatment is not yet available in this country, it is available in parts of Europe. That is a long way to travel but a short distance if it saves a life!
http://www.peoplespharmacy.com/2012/02/25/780-cancer-and-the-immune-system/
Say Hello to Claire Amelia Streisel. Born 8:18am Feb 23rd. We wish Scott and Amy the best of times.
Scott, Amy, and Claire at Mon Hospital.
I have written many times about the numerous non-truths that exist in our world. One of my favorites is our eating habits. I am ready to announce the results of my latest eating experiment on yours truly, me. About a year ago I was gaining weight despite excessive exercise, eating less, still seeing my blood pressure approach 160/85, while seeing my blood sugar gradually increasing. Having spent much of my life pursuing a healthful life-style, I was somewhat confused. Why was this happening to me? Yeah, I am getting older so one must expect things to start breaking down, but I was not ready to moth ball the old tennis shoes at 62. My son started talking to me about a new approach to eating called PRIMAL or THE CAVE MAN DIET. As always I began collecting information and as always my friends had to endure long sessions of my expounding on it. The concept is quite simple: eat the way a person would eat when we were primitive. Said another way, eat all things that come directly from the earth, not chemistry labs. Shop around the perimeter of the food store where the meats, dairy, cheese, vegetables, fruit and generally healthier food are. Stay away from the middle of the store where all the processed food is shelved.
So now the unveiling of the new me: I have lost over 15 pounds while my body fat ranges around 14%. My blood pressure, the last time I measure it, was 125/73 and my blood sugar has returned to its normal levels.
I know many people who are struggling mightily with their weight; I believe this new way of eating, not to be confused with the word diet, is the way to go. All you have to do is eat REAL food, not processed food.
The really cool thing with this way of eating is that you can eat as much as you want as long as it is real food.
Enjoy!
Maybe we have been given some breathing room in our effort to slow down the mad rush to explore the natural gas in Hampshire County. Due to lowered production expectation, lower revenue, negative public sentiment and general public outcry, the Carriso Gas Company has decided to pull up stakes and cease exploratory drilling in Hampshire County. Having been involved with this issue for more than a year, I am somewhat relieved that our beautiful county will not become an industrial wasteland.
One big feather in our cap is that we stopped the building of a recycling plant along the river due in large part to the intense negative reaction of the courageous residents living along River Road. Of course, some folks still believe that jobs were stifled and our county was kept from moving forward. But how will the future judge us? For now our county remains pristine and our precious water pure for the foreseeable future. I say this is a win for all residents of Hampshire County!
Check it out yourself.
http://frack.skytruth.org/home/whats-new/westvirginiafrackalerts
Although I tend to a Democrat by nature, I have a hard time believing either political party has a clue as to what is happening in this country. But I have to sit back and laugh at the poor Republicans who just got a lump of coal for Christmas. Newt, who could be one of the meanest, dirtiest, ‘self-servingest’, wife-swapping politicians we have had in a long time may be the Republican nominee for the upcoming election! And then there is the other horse in the pack, Mitt Romney. Very few can really warm up to Mitt, who has more money and pays fewer taxes than God. Being a Mormon certainly is not a real plus either. Most polls say that Obama will win the next election which makes being on the Republican ticket a real downer, although history has told us many times these polls sometimes lead us astray.
I must admit, being older makes election season time so much more fun. At this point in my life, I have heard every one of these glorious promises but not witnessed any of them coming true. This allows me to sit back and smile while they ramble on and on about stuff that should be in children’s books. Here are a few that are particularly amusing concepts. At the top of my list is, fixing the school system, which is never going happen. Close behind are: balancing the budget while lowering taxes to keep the rich happy, fighting ridiculous wars, providing affordable healthcare for all Americans, fixing the infrastructure, propping up social security ( which now has special meaning to me having just reached 62), sending a man to Mars and metaphorically paving the streets with gold. And we are going to do all this with a diminishing industrial base and a population that is becoming dumber by the minute! Yahoo, I cannot wait to vote!
That is a pretty bold statement considering we are one of the worst countries in the developed world when it comes to math scores. Years ago, while teaching math at the junior high level, a group of us math teachers came together to decided ‘enough was enough.’ We studied the problems we were having teaching basic math to seventh grade students. It quickly became clear that the problem was their lack of basic skills when they entered junior high. Many of them did not even know their multiplication tables. A larger percentage could not add, subtract, divide or multiply numbers with any consistency. Fractions and negative numbers were considered by most students the equivalent of learning calculus! Our problem was moving forward in the math curriculum with students who could not do basic math, so this placed us in the proverbial stream without a paddle.
We decided to attack the problem at its source. The first day of school, we brought all the seventh graders into the multi-purpose room and tested their basic math skills. If I remember correctly, the test had about four problems in addition, four in subtraction, four in two and three digit multiplication and the same number for two and three digit division. We collected the test, graded it, and to our astonishment, only about 20% passed! I remember sitting there with the other math teachers in total shock! Almost 80% of our seventh graders could not do basic math, and this was almost 20 years ago! For a while we just sat there wondering if this was a fixable problem. At this point we had little choice but to continue on with our plan, since it was designed to fix this type of problem.
There were about 100 students and five teachers in the class. We divided the students into five equal groups and headed off to our classrooms. After three weeks of instruction in basic math, we brought the students back into the cafeteria to test them on basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. The results were catastrophic! As we teachers sat there in total shock looking at the results of our feeble attempt at teaching basic math, we began to realize the depth of the problem. Three weeks later we tested them on the four basic math groups, with the addition of decimals, with equally dismal results.
This is where we deviated from the norm, requiring every student who did not pass the two tests with an average score of 75% or higher to retake the first unit in basic math. This amounted to almost 75% of the seventh grade. The students who passed with a 75% or higher moved on to fractions. The remaining students were reassigned to a teacher who would re-teach the first unit. At the end of six weeks we tested them again and promoted them according to whether they passed their test with 75% or higher.
At the end of the year, a mere 12% of students made it through all six units. Each year our scores and passing rate improved despite the fact we did very little different. We finally determined that the improvement was coming from the elementary schools teachers who were feeling the backlash from our program. Students were coming in with better basic skills thus allowing them to move more easily through our units.
Our program lasted five years with steady improvement in our basic math test scores, and then it was scrapped for reasons I cannot remember. We all knew that we were doing the right thing by ensuring that our students KNEW basic math! I met one of those students recently; he thanked me for making sure he could do basic math and said that he is amazed at the number of people he meets who could not do simple math.
Here is my solution:
a. all up and coming ninth grade students will be tested on basic math skills. The test will be developed and checked by the high school math team. In order to move on to the higher level math classes, they must pass this test. If they wish, they will be allowed to retake the test during the summer.
b. All students who fail to pass the competency test will be required to enroll in remediation program which will be set up similar to what we did 20 years ago. Every nine weeks they will have the opportunity to move to the next level of the program. This would be treated as a general math credit towards graduation with nine weeks being 1/4 credit.
c. At the end of the year any student who does not pass the remedial math program would be required to retake the class or pass the basic entrance test given prior to the beginning of the program.
d. The four units would be:
Unit 1 – addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and decimals
Unit 2- addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of fractions with the addition of ratios
Unit 3- All the above with positive and negative numbers
Unit 4- Higher level math to be decided
I make this offer fully aware that the school administration will ignore my proposal. As an experienced math teacher I know first hand what is going on in our public schools but believe it can be fixed if teachers and administrators are willing to make bold decisions. What we are doing IS NOT WORKING. This is no fault of any one person but the result of a complex mixture of social trends leading us down a very steep and slippery slope. WE CAN FIX IT IF WE REALLY WANT TO. The initial impact of a program like this would be enormous as the onslaught of unprepared students fail to meet standards, but there has to be a beginning and I can think of no better time than NOW!
While discussing my idea with an fellow math colleges he made the comment that we should do this in the 6th grade! I believe he is right!
One last thing. Do not be fooled when you hear that the high school is starting a new math program. All they are doing is changing the name so that we can not tell what is being taught!
The new names are Math 1, Math 2, Math 3 and Math 4. How nondescript can you get?
My number is in the phone book.
Okhwan with his bike
Many of us have watched as North Koreans mourned the death of their ruler Kim Jong Il. Groomed to take his place was his son, Kim Jong Un, who few know anything about. Since the North Korean press is merely a puppet of the government, the information we were shown was highly suspect. In what seemed an unrelated event at the time, my son noticed a biker near our local market. He called me to asked me if I wanted to check on him to see if he needed a place to stay. I jumped into the car and drove up to the market where I saw a lonely biker standing in the dark looking quite forlorn. I quickly notice he was Oriental and then saw that he had no seat on his bike. I introduced myself; he introduced himself as Okhwan; we chatted for a short time, and then feeling comfortable with him, I asked if he needed a place to stay. He quickly answered ‘yes,’ and then I instructed him to head down the road as I would followed with my lights since it was dark. Soon we arrived at our home. Okhwan parked his bike and soon became a guest in our home. I suggested that he shower and clean up a little while we found something for him to eat. After a short time we were sitting in the living room, asking questions and getting to know our guest.
The seatless bike
We quickly learned the he is from South Korea and on a very long bike trek for the ‘unification of the Koreas.’ He has been riding his bike for almost TEN YEARS in over 190 countries, covering almost 300,000 miles! Many of those miles were done without the advantage of a SEAT! It seems that Okhwan decided early in his ride that removing the seat and increasing his discomfort would convey the pain and misery the splitting of his mother country has endured for over 50 years. He explained that many families were divided by this split, never to see their relatives again. When I asked him about the crying and sobbing that was shown on TV when Kim Jong iL died, he said it was all staged for the international media, and that most North Koreans were happy that he was dead and very fearful of his son!
Many people ask me why I let strangers into my home. I cannot count the incredibly enriching evenings we have had with bikers who have stayed with us through the decades. We have had bikers from all across our country and many parts of the world. They have blessed us with numerous great stories and infinite wisdom. We feel that our lives are better because of the exposure to so many different people, their adventures and cultures. Okhwan is a wonderful person who genuinely believes in peace and that ordinary people can bring about real changes in the world. The only bad thing about Okhwan’s visit is that he left too soon to be able to meet many of our friends. He says he will be back some day. He is currently biking across the mid-west in route to San Francisco where he will board a plane and return to his home in South Korea where he plans to run for Congress. I wish him all the luck in the world! He has in his unique way devoted his life to PEACE.
Sue and our Okhwan as he gets ready to continue on his journey
If you wish to read more about Okhwan I have several links you can use.
A recent article after he left our house.
http://www.todaysthv.com/news/article/188198/2/Korean-cyclist-rides-for-peace
His blog.
http://www.okhwanstory.blogspot.com/
Over the last three months I have had the good fortune of working with a young man named Seth. As a home-bound teacher I am responsible for instructing him in mathematics and science. My wife takes care of the other subjects, like English and History. Teaching Seth math has been an up-hill battle to determine what he knows and what he does not know, but over time I have patched up his math skills and taught him a little science as well. Seth represents an increasing part of our young population who come from broken homes and are moved from place to place, rarely knowing the feeling of a secure home. About a year ago his aunt and uncle took him in and gave him a loving and stable home. They enrolled him in the Hampshire high school but this did not work out well for him. Because he was Angry, combative and confused Seth was taken from the school environment and placed in a home-schooled environment which better suited his temperament. From the moment I met Seth I wondered where the angry young man was who had been removed from school because he was polite, witty and sometimes hard-working. Overall, he was a delightful young man.
His aunt and uncle who are now his legal guardians were advised that the Mountaineer Challenge program would be a good place for Seth to be. This is a program which takes young adults who may not function well in the public school system and gives them a fast track to their GED and a military career, if they so choose. The program has been in operation for several years and has helped many young people gain their footing in society and thus become productive citizens. Many have had successful military careers.
In a couple of weeks Seth will leave for Kingwood, WV, home of the Mountaineer Challenge program, and begin a demanding program to get his GED and early entry into the Navy. Sue and I want to wish him all the luck in the world and hope that he will occasionally stop by to keep us informed of his journey through life. The mountain in front of him is very steep and there are many hidden obstacles lurking in the bushes, but with determination, Seth will make it. A special word of gratitude goes out to his aunt and uncle who given him the chance he needed to leave his past behind and strike out in a new direction.
Last year, about this time, we were visited by a traveler by the name of Nao from the country of Japan. It was a very enjoyable visit and I felt I needed to write a short story . Shortly after writing it a friend commented that it was a great Christmas story. I thought for a moment and said yes, I guess it is. Like all Christmas stories I felt that this one merited retelling so here it is and I hope all my friends have a great Christmas and a fantastic New Year!
After Nao returned to Japan, his country suffered a massive earthquake and tsunami which Nao and his family survived with minimal damage. From his last message he is anxious to hit the road again and explore another part of our planet.
The other day my friend Steve Bailes called me up to ask if I would be interested in housing a young man from Japan for the evening. He is riding his bike across America, having left from Vancouver 70 days ago. He was coming from Clarksburg and would arrive on Saturday if things worked out. I agreed, and contacted Nao (pronounced NOW which is short for Naotaka Maehara) by email to invited him to stay with us for the evening. He replied that he would like to stay with us Saturday evening. The next two days were interesting as I stayed in contact as much as possible via e-mail. If you remember, this past Wednesday and Thursday we experienced our first major snow fall of the season so Nao was right in the middle of it with the continental divide directly in front of him. To make a long, involved story shorter, he made it across the mountains to our home by 4pm on Saturday. I quickly suggested he take a bath to get warm. He agreed and headed for the bathroom. About an hour later he emerged, hungry, relaxed and anxious to get to know us. Steve had asked if he could come over and meet Nao so I suggested that we do dinner ; at about 6pm Steve and Terry arrived. It was one of those magical evenings that happen so rarely. We talked, exchanged stories and ate until we were ready to pop. Nao turned out to be charming, pleasant and a very gracious guest. I will remember the evening for a long time. With my fading memory that could be months from now. After dinner, us guys went down stairs to give Nao’s bike some tender loving care, which it needed badly. We reattached the front racks, cleaned and oiled the chain, pumped up the tires, and gave it a quick inspection. Later Nao and I went upstairs to spend almost two hours planning his route to New York City. He was ready for his journey to continue in the morning. After I went to bed, Sue stayed up until midnight talking with Nao about who knows what.
Relaxing after dinner
The morning came; Nao had several bowls of cereal and began to ready himself and his bike for his journey to New York City where he was scheduled to arrive on December 23. We created a Skype connection so that he could contact us with his computer, if needed. Shortly thereafter, Nao headed down the driveway.
After Nao had left, we found a note in his bedroom. In the note was a twenty-dollar bill. At first I considered getting in the car and catching him to give back the money but after reading the note I decided not to. This is written in Nao’s own words. He has only been learning English for three years. I’m impressed!
“I met woman in that time. (before he met us) She listened my serious talking and gave this $20 to me. She gave money and I received money. And also I received her kindness. She said, “I can’t help you now, but use this money and stay in hotel. I want you guys receive this $20. I mean it is not a staying fee, it means a woman’s kindness.”
I will keep this twenty and pass it forward when the time comes. Experiences like this one only intensify my belief that life is about the people you meet and the memories you take from those meeting. My only hope is that someday I will get to see Nao again!
