Mosaic

I've just spent a mind numbing amount of time making a picture into a masaic. I am pleased with the results, however, I am finding myself going cross eyed and my hands are shaking. I don't think I will be doing this again. Or, if I do, I will be using larger tiles. Anyway, here is the result:

Verse

I had to spice this photo up. I've just recently was looking at some wonderful verse/pictures and thought, hey- I could do that! So, here is my first verse and photo combined. gotta love online concordances. Great tool to help you find the verse you want. Anyway, enjoy!

It is done!!!

Let us celebrate! Let us rejoice! It is nearly summer. Tomorrow is the last day I will be administering finals for my lovely students! And then summer. Bliss. Oh wonderful break! To kick off this wonderful event let me share with you a creation.

Missing Post

Well, I just finished writing a really neat post complete with lots of pictures and for some reason it did not post. I'm not really up for writting everything again and finding the html for all of the pictures again. So, in essence, I was going to say something about how much I've learned in photoshop this weekend and show you some examples. But, I won't say anymore then I've already said. But, I will leave you with this picture that I was going to post... It is one I didn't think would be very good but I now like:

Model

Not too long ago I did a few senior pictures. For example, here is one of the shots I did of Brittney:



Anywho, I'm thinking, it would be fun to practice a bit and am in need of a good model. Someone who is willing to let me practice and put up with me taking bunches and bunches of pictures. Now, maybe my sister would volunteer if she didn't live so far - maybe she'll be up for it anyway when I do see her next. But, I know of another young lady who is very pretty that I think just might be fair game. I'm thinking I'll offer her a discount on any pictures she wants...

I so love taking pictures!

Radioactive Strawberries

So, whataya think of my radioactive strawberries?? I was playing around with the hue of a my picture and was pleased with the way the strawberries changed colors. So, I tweaked around a bit and made this mosaic. I also made this one:

Power Teaching

I am all for Power Teaching right now. I'm on my second week of using these techniques in my Life Science classes, and let me tell you, there is a difference. For starters, instead of leaving a sour taste in my mouth as my students file out of my classroom, I am now happy and enjoy teaching these kids.

This group of students is a challenging group. They have special needs, they have behavior problems, they have family issues, and in general aren't too keen on the idea of learning and are less keen on the idea of actually having to do work. Often, when I give an assessment of some sorts a small percent earn an "A" and a few more earn a "B" and most earn a low "C" or a "D" and a good handful flat out fail.

Friday, after a week of using Power Teaching techniques 68% of my students earned full points on their quiz. 68%!! When I told them how good they did one of my students said that they could always do that well if the quizzes were always that easy. However, it wasn't an easy quiz, it was that they learned the material.

So, for only a few days, I would have to say that this is a good technique. It is soooooo nice to hear a bright "YES" from all of my students when I say "Class." I used to have trouble getting their attention. I sure hope that I can continue to make this work in my classroom.
http://homepage.mac.com/chrisbiffle/Menu38.html

Poster

To use a word Cindy has coined, I am "oober" excited, my poster came in today. I took a bunch of pictures of my kids on the water quality field trips. I arranged the pictures into a poster - one giant picture in the center with smaller pictures around it. I order two of these posters and they came in today. They look awesome! One I am going to hang up in my classroom and the other one I am going to give to the school board (to hang in their board room). I am excited enough that I could almost go hang mine up right now. I have to wait until Monday to show them off to everyone.



Can you find my one mistake??

Shark Envy

What do you get when you dissect a shark with some of your classes, but not all of them? Jealousy and a wonderful opportunity for kids to learn. Today was the last day that my Life Science students spend dissecting small sharks (dogfish). Most of them enjoyed it - though you always have a few who would rather moan and complain. I had the sharks out last week and my Biology students saw it. Naturally they wished to know if they too were going to dissect sharks. The answer was a simple "no". Biology dissects crayfish and fetal pigs.

Last year Austin, the other life science teacher (who is no longer at this school) dissected sharks with his students. I decided to follow his example and this year ordered some sharks (and some iguanas - gotta beat him somehow!). My sharks came vacuumed packed in bags (Austin's were in a tub and were bigger and better). A day or two before beginning our dissection I remembered and noticed the left over sharks from last year's teacher. Adding his to mine I now had twice as many sharks as I needed. Great, smaller dissection groups - or so I thought.

After school, Joe, the other bio teacher, had a student who wished to stay after school and dissect a shark for extra credit. One thing lead to another and we both opened up an after school dissection to all of our biology students.

Today, for an hour after school students meet and cut open my other four sharks. We had a full crowd of students staying after school to voluntarily dissect. It was great! We will continue the dissection through Wednesday.

Hike

Deer Creek Trail is a lovely trail that snakes around some mountains in the desert about 10 miles south of where we live. Jon and I decided to hike down to the creek, which is just about a mile into the trail. As it was overcast today it made a good day to do this hike. As it gets warmer it will be an uncomfortable hike.

We didn't get too far down the trail when we saw some steer out grazing. A few watched us very carefully while the others ran the other way. Such big creatures can be a bit intimidating! When we got to the creek we scared a few more away.

The purpose of this hike was to check on a cache we had stowed there last year. Unfortunately, seasonal rains had been strong this year and the creek must have gotten really high - there was no sign of our cache. So, we had to write that one off as lost. Too bad.

The creek was really pretty - bubbling water! The whole trail was in a riot of wild flowers. Fairy dusters, phacilia (lots and lots of phacilia), fuchsia cactus blossoms peppered the landscape, and some poppys were out (among many others). It was all in all a nice, little hike.

Birthday

Today I turned a quarter of a century. What an exciting day! I spent it directing kids in their dissection projects - three classes opening cray fish and two classes looking into some very smelly sharks. Okay, that part of the day could have been a bit better. I was wise after yesterday and donned a pair of gloves while working with the sharks. I had to learn the hard way that the smell does not easily leave one's hands. My hands smelled of shark after several washings and dousing in perfumy substances. Today I did not have that problem.

Good things - I have two sisters in my classes. These are two wonderful girls - one is a senior and in my ecology class and the other in my life science class as a freshman. Both of these ladies are completely addicted to Star Bucks. Yesterday the older let me have hers - which was unexpected and very nice. They told me that I would have to be careful or I too would be addicted. Today, because it is my birthday, they brought me another one - this time bigger! They are on a mission to addict me to Star Bucks! It was a delightful and thoughtful treat.

I must be getting older - Jon decided to get me memory for this birthday (for my computer)! I can now do more and go further on my machine. We also dined out at a very nice stake house in town. It has been a lovely evening.

Star Bucks Adict (I won't tell you which one):

Four Wheeling in a Bus

Tomorrow I take my students out for the last time this semester to measure parameters of a local river. This will be our fourth visit this year. We had originally intended to visit more at least five or six times, but the late arrival of our equipment changed our plans.

Our first trip had been in February and had been cold. Tomorrow I have great hope to be a brilliantly, wonderful day. In fact, it is currently 78 degrees in the shade! Because we will be at the base of the Rim it will be a bit cooler than it is in Payson. The water will still be icy - but that won't keep us out of it!

We typically visit six sites along the river. This time we are having to cut out the last stop. Imagine, if you will, a bus full of kids (a big bus). Imagine now a dirt road. Imagine that dirt road being a single lane. Imagine ruts that are deep. Really deep. Imagine a fallen pine tree that has been dragged (barely) to the side of the road. You have to be careful not to scrape the root ball at the side of the road. It is taller than the bus. There are hills. There is no shoulder. At the end of the road is an oasis of pristine water and waterfalls. However, the bus drive there is kind of like rafting. Needless to say the bus people said we can't take a bus out there again. Lucky for us, the other five sites are still accessible.

The trip is loads of fun. The kids have a blast and each time we take some students from other classes. Last time we took some middle school students. My students enjoyed working with the younger kids so much that they requested (and were denied for this year at least) to just take the middle school kids for the rest of the trips.



We see lots of critters (the lady bug just being one out of many). We send the kids into the river with kick nets to see what sort of bugs are living in the water - which in turn gives us an indicator on how healthy the water is.



Tomorrow should provide me with another 2 gig or so of pictures. Keep a look out for them on Flickr!

Home Made Cookies

Hankering for some good, homemade, cookies, I set out to find a new recipe and try it out. I settled on a recipe for sugar cookies that seemed to be fairly unhealthy. As the recipe needed to chill in the fridge for a while I started the cookies this morning. (While I waited I went on an amazing walk with Jon.)

After they were chilled I set to baking them. Although the recipe said that I should roll them out and shape them, I was lazy and decided to treat it as a drop cookie. I did get a bit guilty over doing so and squished the cookies somewhat flat with the bottom of a cup. I needn't worry - the batter was thin enough they could have been kept in their ball shape while baking.

While the cookies were baking I set about making an icing - you can't have sugar cookies without frosting. I even went so far as to fill two icing bags fitted with two generic tips. I had picked them up in the store today just for this purpose. I dyed half of the icing green and the rest a lovely shade of purple. As I was filling the bag with the green icing I was discouraged to notice that I had not been too careful and had icing on my hand.... On closer inspection I realized that the seam of the bag was leaking icing as I was filling it. So, I was being careful - just faulty supplies. Nothing that a bit of packing tape couldn't fix - though I'm not too sure if the bag will be up for a second usage.

I had fun decorating my cookies. Jon even tried his hand at a few. I forgot to tell him to be careful about how he squeezed the icing out. He ended up handing me a bag that was oozing purple icing out of the top. Live and learn. Anyhow, here is a picture of these cookies:



Cookie Recipe used (I gave it 4 out of 5 stars)
Icing recipe used

Mine Time

Today has been a long and busy day, but not without its highlights. One of the many good aspects of today was a long anticipated lab that I did with my ecology students. I had set up tubs of dirt that were landscaped - and boy were they cute. Each plot of land had beans and peanuts buried in it. My students were then giving instructions on how to mine for the beans. They were allowed to buy equipment and I was allowed to fine them when they tried to bend the rules. We actually lost time and nearly did not have enough time to clean up our lab stations. Tomorrow we will conclude our simulation - see how much money our miners made - and do the follow up discussion and questions. All in all, it was a great lab. The kids really got into it and had fun. I enjoyed watching them as each team employed their own strategy. Plus, it was a lot of fun to fine people.

Photo Editing

I finished editing my pictures from the zoo yesterday. I have found that I really enjoy taking the time to edit and play around with my photos and finding the best out of them. Sometimes you can uncover some real gems in pictures you did not think were all that great. Take for example this picture:



At first it wasn't too great. When I had taken this picture my focus had been on Jon and Natasha and consequently they were centered in the picture. When I looked at the print, however, on my screen, I saw that this shot would do much better cropped.

Other pictures, however, turn out exquisite, and need little, if any, editing. For example, this picture of Ashlee feeding the birds at the zoo:



All in all, I believe I spent way too much time working on my pictures last night. Today, however, I found myself working on a presentation that I will be giving tomorrow morning (at 6:45 am!!). So, in preparation of my early start tomorrow, I will be soon in bed.

Snap!

Well, I realized that I could post videos and decided, hey, that's a good deal! So, here is a video! The light was really poor, but we had such a kick out of this turtle at the zoo. This is a box turtle that I would not want to meet without a glass barrier as he seemed a bit mean. However, we gained great enjoyment out of watching him try to snap at our fingers. Ben, who is only five, had the most fun - he would always jump even knowing the glass was there.

I usually don't take too many videos, simply because I can't share them as easy. Perhaps I will have to dig around and find a few that I do have. Come to think of it, I do have a great little video of Jennifer at my college graduation....

Bon Voyage!

Traditionally the term "Bon Voyage" is used to say farewell, good luck on your journey. Well, I am taking a new journey today. I am now blogging - wow - who would have thought? So, instead of saying farewell, this is to say I've started a new journey.

The real reason for me doing this is because of my sister. I figure if she can sign up for a flickr account (which I have to admit, I am totally addicted to), the least I can do is try some blogging. After all, I already do that with my pictures on flickr. By the way, if you haven't checked out my flickr site you should.




Photo taken at the Wild Life Park near Phoenix, Arizona. We went with some family and had a blast. I don't know what the Do-do bird looked like, but I image he looked somewhat like this fellow.