Dave Out Loud

Sunday's Cool

A Link Up and A Look Ahead

A Link Up: I started a new vlog this week.

A vlog is a blog where the main content are video entries. The name my vlog is Dave Out Loud Dave Out Strong, Dave of Happy Not Sad, Dave of Good Things not Bad. I am not sure how frequently I am going to make entries, as this house doesn't often get quiet enough for video journalism. When it does, I will link my vlogs over here.

A Look Ahead: Thanksgiving Week was a pretty busy one for us. We had our co-op's closing program, a quick visit to Indiana, a bout with sickness, the premiere of the Muppets, Thanksgiving with relatives, and some swimming thrown in for good measure. This week I plan to post about one or two of those activities, starting tomorrow with my HSD review of the Muppets.

Sunday's Cool: Fragments of a Tweenaged Spider Droid

Sunday's Cool

A link up & A Look Ahead

A Link up: Friday my son posted on his blog for the first time in a long time. He also made a lot of changes to it. So I suggest after you read his most recent post, that you spend a little time there admiring what he has done with the place. He would also like followers. Unlike my daughter, who is content just to write her blog whether people read it or not, SD wants people to actually see what he does. So go ahead make his day and follow his blog.

A Look Ahead: The week just past, was a busy one for me in the blogosphere and in real life. This week should be as well. I am hosting the Carnival of Homeschooling on Tuesday as well as getting ready for our co-op semester to end a week from Monday. Add to that some home improvements and our regular school week and it should be a very eventful week.

Sunday's Cool: Bunny Circus

Sunday's Cool

A Link Up & A Look Ahead

A Link Up: In September and October when I was all but an absent figure in the blogosphere, I was also not pushing my children's presence there. Now that things at the Izola Becker Home School or more or less to back to normal, I hope my kids will get back to blogging as well.

On Friday, Bunny Girl wrote a post about our trip to the Circus. You can get to that post my clicking on the picture of the 12 year old ringmaster or by clicking here.

A Look Ahead: This week I plan to blog about birthdays. My son's that just passed and a birthday my late brother would have loved. I also will be working on the Carnival of Homeschooling that I will be hosting on the 16th of this month.

Next Time: Birthday Training

Ereth's Birthday

Sunday's Cool

A Link Up & A Look Ahead

A Link Up: Bunny Girl read this book and enjoyed it. So I asked her to read it again and write chapter summaries for it. She has been placing those book summaries in her blog, Bookworms & Bunnies. Click here to see her first entry. clicking the title of her blog or the cover of her book will bring you to the latest entry.

A Look Ahead: My next idea has a variety of people I need to thank for. First: The good people at Why Homeschool who manage the Carnival of Homeschooling. Secondly, Life Nurturing Education, who hosted this past week's carnival. Thirdly, Arby of the Home School Apologist who wrote this very good post about culture where she referenced a post giving the same old recycled opinions why home schooling is not such a great idea, and finally for Sandy Laurence who wrote the aforementioned piece entitled Homeschool Disadvantages.

Why all this build up? Because in reading Sandy's post and the myriad of comments that followed said post, I was given material for no less than 3 future posts of my own. You know the maxim, if life gives you lemons make lemonade? Well until I read Sharon's post, there hadn't been a lemon like that since the Yugo came on the market. The pieces I have planned should be pure lemonade. The first of which, "How to get 50 or more comments on a post about Home Education" should roll out tomorrow.

Selection Sunday

Sunday's Cool
A Link Up and a Look Ahead

A link up: Crazy Uncle Dave's Sport-O-Rama is my sports blog. I don't update it nearly as often as I'd like to. That may explain why today's link-up about our NCAA Brackets is over 11 months old. It is timely though as the field of 68 was just announced and the tournament starts on Tuesday. Last year Amy and I kind of split our contest. I picked Duke to win it all and they did. Amy picked Butler to win it all and they made it to the championship game. She ended up scoring more overall points than I did. Amy and I will make our picks tomorrow and I will try to post them at Sport-O-Rama prior to Tuesday's tip off.

A Look Ahead: I will try to continue with the Lenten observations I began last week. I also have a few promised posts that might come up this week. Puppy will probably say or do something crazy. So you never know what you will get. One thing I can tell you is that sometime in the next fortnight I will explain what I mean by countdown to 500 which has appeared in the upper left hand corner of this blog for the past few weeks.

Good luck making up for that lost hour and have a great week!

Sunday's Cool

I am trying out a new feature today. It's called Sunday's Cool: A Link up and a Look Ahead. Our family has several other blogs here in the blog-o-sphere. The majority of them go untended for and ultimately unread. I have decided that each Sunday I will link up one of those blogs here. This should give me the encouragement I need to have those update more often. That will be the link-up portion of the title. The look-a-head will just be a sneak peek at what may be appearing on this blog in the coming 7 days. As my loyal readers may have noticed, I used to end each post with a sneak peek of what my next post would be about. Sometimes the hardest part of writing a post was simply writing the next time tag. So, I gave up on it. This will give me a chance to give you a warning if I'm starting a six post series on lawn furniture feng-shui.

So with that build up here is the innaugural episode . . .

Sunday's Cool

A Link Up and a Look Ahead

A link up: A few weeks ago our family went to Springfield to indicate our disapproval with proposed Senate Bill SB136. It was tabled so we must have done some good. At our home school web site : Izola Becker Home School, I put up a few pictures from our time there. We chose this picture because past Puppy and the Liberty Bell replica you can see the lines of people waiting to enter the Capitol building and attend the discussion on the bill. Click on the picture to see the entire post.



A Look Ahead: Speaking of SB 136. I plan to post this week parts of an epilogue to SB 136 I saw at the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA). I will give it a HSD twist and plan to call it "Of Carrots and Sticks." On Monday, I will be announcing the winner of the home school conference mp3 give-a-way. This is your last chance to enter. Click here to do so. Hopefully the week won't get away from me and there will be loads of interesting tidbits here. Enjoy your Sunday and have a great week!.

Volkswagen Commercial: The Force

Haven't got into the 6 word Saturday swing yet this year. I usually don't steal post ideas from my 9 year olds blog but this was too good to pass up.

My 6:

This is the best commercial ever!










If this is not the six words you seek click here.

Alice predicts Paul Konerko's next team.

Paul Konerko
Originally uploaded by chicagogrl95

We have this thing in our house called doing an Alice. It's based on a Brady Bunch reference. There was a big football game and Greg's team won. The family came home told Alice they won and she pulled out a big cake said Congratulations. Mrs. Brady then asked Alice what she would have done if they lost she proceeded to take a second cake out of the fridge that said better luck next year.

Sometime today or tomorrow it will be announced if Paul Konerko will be the White Sox next year or if he will be going to another team to finish off a stellar career.

When he makes his decision, I will make an announcement at Crazy Uncle Dave's. Until then, let me go ahead and do an Alice ...

Congratulations on your new deal Pauly Longball (a nickname I gave him). Looking forward to having you back. Rings in 11!


Go way down to see the other cake.
















































Pauly! We will miss you. Good luck with your new team. Thanks for all you did for the team. Thanks especially for taking a home town discount in 'o5 instead of heading to the Angels for the cash.

Home School Kids Carnival @ Alice's Bunny Blog

As I mentioned a few days ago Bunny is hosting a home schooled kids carnival at her blog. I think she did a great job! Make sure you check it out.

An Exciting Announcement

Last August I posted about how I was teaching a blogging class in my home school co-op. In preparing the class I decided a good class project would be hosting the Homeschool kids carnival. I contacted the person who runs the carnival and set the whole thing up for the November 30th edition.



It turns out that only my daughter signed up for the blogging class. And I decided to put it off for a semester to see if I could generate more interest. Earlier this month, the host of the host of the homeschool kids carnival contacted me to remind me of the November edition. Since I didn't really have a class I could turn to, I asked Bunny to host it. Asked or commanded, depends on your point of view.



So, come November 30th, Alice's Bunny Blog will be hosting the Homeschool Kids Carnival. If you have any children who would like to submit an entry click here. For more info on the carnival, click here.

First 4 weeks of new school year

At the beginning of the 2010 2011 school year I decided to write weekly journal entries about what was going on at school. I decided to post those at one of my other blogs, Izola Becker Home School. Last week I became aware that a blog I follow, Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers has a weekly feature where you can link up weekly summaries such as mine called Weekly Wrap-up

I have decided to make my weekly summaries available on this blog as well. Every 4 weeks or so I'll put the most recent ones in a post.
















Here are the first 4.

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4



Next Time: Six Word Saturday

Men's Monday Meme

I am participating in Families Again's Men's Monday Meme again this week. The questions arise this week to criticism the author received to posting about helping poor people in foreign countries. Here is a link to his comments in full. Here are the questions that I am going to address:

1. Should we only help those here at home and forget those abroad? 2. Have those abroad "gotten themselves into their own mess", and we need to clean up our own "messes"? 3. Is it anyone's business what we do with our time and money?

1. Ethnocentricity, the belief in the inherent superiority of one's own ethnic group or culture, may not be an American invention, but we certainly have perfected it. I find the notion that we should help only those at home and forget those abroad ironic when most Americans can trace their lineage to lands other than here.

Ethnocentricity may stem from a false sense of value. In a recent post, I talked about the possible false belief that the U.S. is the best nation on the earth. I say the possible false belief, because for all I know, the U.S. might be the best. Even if that is the case, does it make any sense for me to feel better about myself for being an American? I didn't do anything to become an American. I just happened to be born here.

In my opinion, God has chosen the nationality and ethnicity of everyone on earth. Does He really love me more than the child being born this minute in extreme poverty 1/2 way across the globe? I think it is very easy for those who are blessed materially to not realize what they have to be thankful for, until they are given a glimpse of how those not so blessed live.

2. It is important to teach people who we are responsible for how to bail themselves out of their own messes from time to time. So as a parent, teacher, coach, or church worker, I may have the opportunity to teach someone the consequences of their actions. When dealing with strangers in need, I have no such obligations to mold their behavior, I only have the Biblical mandate to treat them as Jesus would.

3. It is not really anyone's business what we do with our time and money. However, if we blog or write on facebook what we do with our time and money, we make it other people's business. This blog automatically updates to my facebook page. That means that everything I write here is available for friends and family who may never take a look at my blog (you know who you are.) So if I blog about how much I love the White Sox, it may open myself up to a few nasty comments from my Cub Loving familial compatriots. Is it any of their business that I love the White Sox? No. But when I tell them I do, I invite their comments. Which is one of the reasons why my sports blog doesn't automatically update to my facebook page, so there!

So, that's my Men's Monday Meme for the week. To participate yourself click here.

Next Time: DC Trip Day 9

Structured and Unstructured

Party! Party! Party! This weeks carnival of homeschooling is a party edition hosted by Misty at Home School Bytes.com. She has asked me to contribute an article, as I had submitted one last time she hosted.

I actually started this post yesterday, until I realized that it was my last day to blog about the book One Million Arrows (Which, by the way, tells some excellent stories about home schooled families.) That is what happens to the avid procrastinator, you put off Peter to meet Paul's deadline. Or in this case Peter is Misty and Paul is Julie. Well enough with the nonsense, let's get this party started.

I am constantly fighting between myself as to whether my home school personality/style should be structured or unstructured. I have always been a fly by the seat of my pants kind of guy. At times it has been a necessity. When I was a missionary in Russia, more than once I was asked to give remarks or a sermon 5 minutes before the service started. Doesn't the Bible say "always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you." (1 Peter 3:15 ESV)?

Ah! There's the key word, prepared! Often when I am unstructured, it is precisely because I am not prepared. I roll with the punches, rather than put a few jabs in of my own. Most people, like myself, who think they like getting things done at the very last minute are just fooling themselves. They like it because it's the only thing they've ever known.

Unstructured maybe a good style for some. but if unstructured is just a euphemism for lazy, then you have big trouble!

So here I am making a good argument to be structured. But here is the problem, when I try to be structured, I drive my kids and myself crazy. The problem is that when I structure myself, I am a very unforgiving master. If school is supposed to start at 9 and we don't start until 9:05 then the whole day is ruined! There are constant disruptions in our class day. It's the kind of thing you would expect when one of your students is nicknamed Destructo!

What I have been learning the hard way these past 2 years is that structure is good, but too much structure is suffocating. I think structured and unstructured can be on the same boat as Pete and Repeat, if you have good understanding of what structured and unstructured mean.

To me, structured means being prepared and unstructured means being flexible. This is problematic in our house as I have described my procrastination trouble in the past two posts and one of my student's has been telling me for years "I'm not flexible!". Problematic or not I see that I need to be prepared and flexible at the same time. Not unstructured because I wasn't prepared or structured because I'm inflexible.

I, like all of us, am a work in progress. On this past Friday, I got the idea for this post as I was both structured and unstructured at the same moment. On Friday, the last thing Emma does at the end of the school day is to work on her blog. The problem was she had just taken her spelling test and had not done as well as I would have wanted. We were running late (says the inflexible teacher), and I wanted her to move on to her blog, but I also wanted her to write sentences using the missed spellings words. That's when structured and unstructured were sitting in a tree s-c-h-ool-i-n-g. I told her to write a blog post using her missed spelling words.

Here is what my Bunny Girl came up with . . . (This is also available at her blog by clicking here)

I will create a story using these five words: allegiance, geometry, appearance, biennial, and disturbance. Get ready for a cool story about bunnies right now!

At school By Alice

Told by Jenny the Bunny

I was at school, during geometry when there was a sudden disturbance. "Jenny!" said my brother, Benny. " We just saw the appearance of Nero!" I whispered to him, " That cat is for show and tell. He is for the biennial of Whiskers!". Nero is my cat. He is a ancestor of Whiskers, the most famous cat in the B.S.B! I told Benny to bring me Nero after we pledge allegiance to the flag. Mrs. Honey told us to write a report of famous cat or the ancestor of a famous cat. She told us to bring a ancestor of a famous cat or draw one. After we pledged allegiance, Benny came in with a basket. A yowling basket! "Benny! What are you doing?!" I asked. Mrs. Honey asked me,"Will you please do show your show and tell please?" I looked in the basket, put it on the desk and said," Look in the basket. What do you see? The one in the middle is my pet cat, Nero. It looks like she just had kittens. Nero is related to Whiskers. And so are her baby kittens!"

The End.

By the way, B.S.B stands for the Bunny States of Bunny world. Good Bye!

So what do structured and unstructured mean to you? What other interior struggles does home education bring out in you? Please fell free to comment and let me know. Also hop on over to my daughter's bunny blog (pun intended) and let her know what you think of her story. Then do the hop back to the party at Homeschoolbytes for the rest of this weeks carnival.

Next Time: More about One Million Arrows

Maybe This Year

There is something fundamentally hopeful about New Years Day. New Years Day reminds me of the do-over speech from the movie City Slickers. Sure the world may be run by Murphy and his Law firm and anything that can go wrong may just do that. But on New Year's Day it feels, at least to me, just the opposite. Anything that can go right, probably will. In short it's hard not to get on the mountain top and shout for the world to hear "This will be the year ...".

Now, I know I have my own sports blog now and don't have to mess up these pages with my January First induced optimism. But I am going to anyway and since Saturday is right around the corner I am going to do so in 6 words.

White Sox 2010 World Series Winners

No explanation needed and by the time Spring Training rolls around I may have already changed my tune. But Today that's my story and I am sticking with it.

Head over to Show My Face dot com where six word saturday is celebrating its 1 year anniversary for other six words.

Next Time: Addressing the President

Six words after Christmas

2 New Cameras 1 New Phone

Had a very merry Christmas. We did something new this year giving each other only 1 gift per person from each person. We knew that between grandparents, aunts and uncles the kids would be lavished with gifts and we did not need to pile on.

Each kid spent their own money for the gifts they gave. Allowing Amy and I to get what my dad used to call "the biggie."

Charlie and Emma received cameras. So if you ever happen over to their blogs (Emma, Charlie) expect to see lots of pictures of bunnies and Star Wars Lego Sets respectively.

I wasn't totally surprised to receive a telephone this year. We had washed my last one and I was in need. However the type of phone floored me. We have never had any kind of phone with a contract before it has always been pay as you go. My new Samsung has internet access, a camera (that also takes video, a GPS, a pastry chef, and a word processor. Amy wanted me to have something that I could use when I got a blog or other creative idea that worked better than a Taco Bell Napkin.

I have to go now and register for the graduate school course I will need in order to master the intricacies of this phone. Hope every one's Christmas was as good as ours. Skip on over to showmyfacedotcom to see more of Six Word Saturday.

Next Time: A Cool Use For A GPS

A Great Drum

Hockey Lessons

Life Lessons from the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team

This is the first post that I am publishing in it's entirety on both my blogs. The idea speaks to me on both a sports and home school level.

Mark Pavelich was one of the three young men who played on the "conehead" line for Herb Brook's gold medal winning hockey team. Named the cone head line because of the unique perhaps alien style the boys played with as an homage to the popular conehead sketch on Saturday Night Live at that time.

The book "The Boy's of Winter" does an excellent job portraying Pavelich as someone who loves playing Hockey but not the notoriety that comes with excelling. Pavelich is one of 2 NHL players to score 5 goals in a game. 1

That fact notwithstanding, Pavelich was much more comfortable getting the puck to other scores than scoring himself. Most familiar with the Miracle on Ice are familiar with Mike Eurizione's game winning goal. It was Pavelich who got the assist. Pavelich also got the assist on his line mate Buzz Schneider's first period goal that knotted the Russians at one. How appropriate that a player who liked being behind the scenes made the first and final assists in the most important hockey game in his countries history.

As a NHL player Pavelich was known for his poise on the ice, his practical jokes in the locker room and his desire to be and completely comfortable in who he was as a person. Who he was off the ice was not a social butterfly or a clotheshorse. There are countless stories in "Boys of Winter." showing Pavelich's preference to be withdrawn and only comfortable outside of the rink when He was fishing, hunting or other outddorsy tasks. His New York Rangers teammate Nick Foitu described him thusly, "He dressed like a mountain man from the backwoods of Minnesota. Then he would come out on the ice and play his heart out." 2

Joe Devaney a close friend of Pavelich's summed him up this way . . . "He's completely happy and content with what he does. He marches to his own drum and it's a great drum." 3

I really liked that quote because it makes an important distinction for going against the status quo. Some people march to a different drum just to be contrarian. When they hear toe-may-toe they have a knee-jerk need to say toe-mah-toe. Unfortunately, being different just to be different doesn't usually make a difference.

Amy and I march to a different drummer when it comes to educating our kids. We home school our children and we don't do it to be different. We do it because, for us, homeschooling is a great drum. Like Pavelich, we are happy and content with our decision to homeschool.

As a parent I also see the quote about Pavelich as an opportunity to help my children find their drummer. All our children seem to be on their way to establishing their own paths. Emma, the literary giant and animal lover. Charlie, the scientist, explorer, super hero. Lucy, the 1 man wrecking crew/ballerina with an unusual take on about everything. I recently told her that over Christmas Break I wanted her to memorize three state capitols. I suggested Indiana, Iowa and Missouri as they border Illinois. She responded back that she wanted to memorize the capitols of Kentucky, Bethlehem and Arkansas.

As Amy and I help them find their drummer we realize it doesn't have to be the road less traveled, we just want the path they take to be a great drum.

Next Time: Christmas Eve at the Bowling Alley

1. Wikpedia article on Pavelich

2. The Boys of Winter. Coffey, Wayne. p. 167

3. Boys of Winter, P. 169

No Business Like Snow Business

Nothing says "Hello Winter!" like sledding!

Here's a recipe for winter excitement:

Take 1 kid and 1 clone and . . .

Go Sledding!

Have fun and don't forget the Hot Chocolate! Slide down over to show my face dot com for more Six Word Saturday. and don't forget to check out my new Blog: Crazy Uncle Dave's Sport-O-Rama.

Next Time: Our Kids Sing

Hello Sports Fans

I have been blogging for almost a year at my main blog: Home School Dad. Like me, my blog is eclectic. I blog about a great variety of topics. Fow whatever reason, I have not posted alot about sports. This is not because I don't have a lot to say about sports. No, I have plenty to say! I am constantly having sports discussions in my head that are begging to get out. Perhaps Home School Dad is not just the correct springboard for my sports diatribes, discourses, and delusions.

To Read More Click Here

NEXT TIME: No Business like Snow Business