Puppy Out Loud?!!!!?

PUPPY TAKES OVER DAVE OUT LOUD STUDIOS!

7 reasons why I'd like to win a ticket to the Titus 2:1 Conference

The Titus 2:1 Conference is coming to your town.  That is if your town is Sterling, Va. The Conference takes place in April 27th through 29th and is a homeschool bloggers conference.

Kris, of Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers,  is one of the speakers at the event.  She has been given 1 ticket to the event (a $199.00 value) to give away on her blog.  This post is my entry to said give-a-way.  My goal, to explain why I'd like to win a ticket to the conference.

Here is a list of my reasons.  Some are serious, some are silly and some are just plain HSD.

Reasons I want to attend the Titus 2:1 Conference

1.  I like to go places where it's not certain that I'm welcome. 

The Titus 2:1 Webpage page says:


The 2:1 Conference is a faith based conference for homeschooling parents that blog (not just about homeschooling), or are otherwise interested in social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter.

Well that's me, a homeschooling parent who blogs.  So I'm invited right?  Not so fast.  The Conference Home Page, the one you read before you can even get to the About page, says this in the first paragraph:

2:1 is the premier conference for bloggers like you - mothers, in the trenches of homeschooling, with hearts for God. 

Well, I am in the trenches of homeschooling, but am not a mother.  It seems like it might be kind of awkward for me to go to a place where I'll stand out like a sore thumb.  This brings me to reason 2.

2. I don't mind standing out like a sore thumb.

A seminary professor of mine described me to a mutual friend years later, by saying that I marched to a different drum.  I am told that he meant it as a compliment, and I certainly took it as one.  As a Homeschool Dad who is actually the stay at home teacher rather than the go to work provider, I am used to sore thumb status.  I finally got our co-op to stop calling the break room the Mom's room and refer to it as the parents room instead. 

Seriously, I think I can learn a lot by being with so many bloggers in one place, that my sore thumbs won't mind so much.

Or I could, as Steven Keaton explained to his wife Elise in Family Ties what he would do at an all female architects convention, arm wrestle for money.


3. I'd like to learn some technical aspects of blogging especially advertising.

I would love to do more advertising on this blog and would like to talk with other bloggers how they do that.

4. Because winning a ticket is much better than losing a ticket.

Seriously, you are on you way out the door to go see a show. Then you realize you don't have the tickets. Where are they?  Now we are going to be late.  Puppy did you make that mess?!?


5.  I love D.C. and have relatives in the area I could stay with.

6.  To find out how to increase my readership. 

I think being a teaching blogging Dad in a Mom's world hinders the type of audience I can attract.  However, maybe this conference can help me get the word out on HSD as well as give me new strategies for increasing my readership.

7. I could certainly use the spiritual refreshment.

  I like that this conference is faith based. Teaching my kids at home is the toughest job I ever have had.  It depletes my energy and my spirituality.  A conference like this will be a great blessing.

So those are 7 reasons why I'd like to win a ticket to the conference.  I'll be back later today with some Friday Fragments.

Turtle Cake is Best a HSD Rewind (Sort of)

This post was originally aired in 2010 in November.  It has been one of my most popular posts over the past 2 years.  Somehow, it has been in draft status for a while.  This is probaly from  back when I was trying to clear out all the kid's real names and put in their blog names. 

Since the post was in draft it did not count in my post count.  So this old post is actually # 600.  600 posts and I even brought a cake!



Spider Droid's Cub Scout Pack had a cake walk Friday Tonight. Each Cub Scout was to design and help make a cake according to a theme. I did not tell Spider Droid all the themes. There was an "other" theme which meant decorate the cake any way you want. I neglected to mention that one to Him. Otherwise it would have been A Star Wars Cake all the way. There is a limit to how much Star Wars stuff a guy can take, so I said nothing.


One of the themes was wildlife and SD decided to make a cake based on his favorite animal, the turtle. Here is how it turned out.

While Amy and I helped with some of the baking and decorating, SD was involved in every part of the process.

For each The scoutmaster announced 3 scouts in and asked them to come to the front. At that point, you knew they were in the top 3 but not what place.

When we entered the cake I heard many positive comments about the turtle cake and since some of those same people were judges I was not surprised that his name was called for the top 3.

But this did surprise me . . .

First Prize!!! Congratulations, SD! When it comes to having good ideas and implementing them, I guess you take the cake!

Meanwhile back in 2012 - Spider Droid is no longer doing scouts but he still likes turtles. 

I promised that I would wrap up the HSBA today.  If you check out my pages you will see a HSBA 2011 page. In it I have revealed all my voting for the awards and also highlighted all the winning blogs and shared a sample post from each. 

Weekly Wrap Up

Carrnival of Homeschooling at Time For Learning

This week's Carnival of Homeschooling is being hosted at The Home School Online Blog of Time For Learning Dot Net.

The Theme is the oganized hmeschool.  They have included my review of War Horse as well as some other great posts.   I am looking forward to getting organized and reading as many posts as I can.

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For the past few weeks, I have been featuting each of the 20 winning blogs from the 2011 HSBA Awards.  I am finishing that up today,with the winner in the Thrifty Homeschool  category.  So if you want to talk to that winner, who you gonna call?  That's right, Econobusters.  Here is a  sample post.

In my next post, I will wrap up all this HSBA talk with a special announcement.

Extreme Makeover Joplin Edition

We have been watching Extreme Makeover since the show began. We watch almost every episode on Hulu. The series finale was especially poignant since it took place in Joplin, Mo where Charlie and I spent an awesome week this summer.

In fact, we were there for thee same reason EMHD was to help rebuild Joplin after the Tornadoes last May.

It was a great episode.  If you did not see it you can do so right here right now.

Part I




Part II



The featured HSBA winner today is in the category Best Home School Mom.  The winner is  A Jewish Homeschool Blog.  It is a fascinating blog and I really like this recent Sample Post.