Philip Glass – Satyagraha
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One of the best purchases I ever made was in 2004, when I drove past a yard sale, saw a piano for sale, slammed on my brakes and bought the thing. Best $150 bucks I’ve ever spent. Plus, the sight of literally rolling the thing 50 yards up the street and into my apartment gave the neighbors amusement for years to come.
Unfortunately, the wooden stand has since become dislodged, and no amount of screwing it back in does the trick, resulting in hours of sheet-music-less piano improvision, which, while certainly entertaining for me, is far less so for my upstairs neighbors. No complaints yet, but it wouldn’t surprise me if I get one soon. Simply put, Chopin has not been heard for ages, mostly due to this lack of a music stand (and the fact that I’m not much of a fan of Chopin).
However, two days ago, while reading one of my favorite blogs, Lifehacker, (essentially an cross between a tech-junkie and DIY – website), I read a post in which a reader fashioned a workable iPad stand using nothing but a metal clothes hangar. Suffice it to say, that post and accompanying video was all the inspiration I needed to adapt a pair of well worn clothes hangars to my current dilemma.
Violà!
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Although I’m not typically much of one for video games, I’ve been having so much fun recently with a built-in (and somewhat hidden) Flight Simulator that you can run in Google Earth. (Click here for easy activation details…)
The learning curve is pretty steep, but well worth it, once you figure out how to get your plane to do something other than STALL and crash. Above, you can see my noble attempt at navigating the friendly skies above Central New York, although I can imagine the solace-seekers at the Beaver Lake Nature Center aren’t enjoying the fly-over normally reserved for sporting events.
If the title of this post didn’t immediately indicate it, now you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that yes, I am a geek! Oh well. I’ve long since embraced that fact and continue to lavish those around me with it :)
This Monday, I’m in charge of a professional development session for teachers on how to create and manage a blog for their classroom. Instead of creating a typical worksheet, I decided to actually create a blog about blogging (a “meta-blog” for those of my friends who are fans of Douglas Hofstadter)! Right now (Friday night) this seems like a pretty good idea, but we’ll see what happens on Monday. The good news is that the teachers in the training will be able to immediately comment on how the session went. I guess teaching other teachers is one of the things I’ve taken more ownership of at school in the past few years. It’s usually alot of fun to be able to share some things I’ve experienced in my classroom with my colleagues! Anyway, I’m looking forward to a relaxing weekend, and another 3 weeks of professional development before the kids come back in September!
By the way, my comments in the preceding paragraph qualify this posting as a Meta-Meta-Blog for those of you keeping score at home!
Geeks: 1 Jocks: 0
In honor of beginning a new school year in just under a month (and at risk of further alienating my already disillusioned readers), I’m starting a new blog. This will mostly serve the same function as my previous blog, but just like my new phone number, has quite a few options and features that I love so much more!!! Thanks again for taking the time to read my blog when you probably could be spending your time doing something much more productive. [For those of you who care, this blog is being published with WordPress, which I have found found even more effective than Google's Blogger].
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