Visit the kelpforest....

And something I should probably spend some time doing in the front yard before the city comes after us. Again. The grass gets mowed but the planters are sorry.

A philosophical approach to weeds...

http://www.google.com/logos/verne.html

Neat! Check out the Google main page for Jules Verne's birthday! Be sure to move the joystick around!

http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/Horizons/2011/0208/Jules-Verne-on-Google-Can-you-find-all-the-hidden-treasures

Happy Groundhog Day! If we had groundhogs here, they'd fershure be seeing their shadows, as it's sunny but blowing gusty Santa Ana winds (do gophers work instead?). And by the way, Groundhog Day is one of my favorite movies.

( Dad update... )

He's also finally expressed a bit more interest in reading - so far, he hasn't wanted to, but did like it when Doug and I read short stories to him. My brothers and I had talked about going in together on a Kindle for him since he's been complaining that books, especially hardbacks, just start getting too heavy to hold up and start hurting his hands. I decided to go with a Kindle rather than a Nook because of its text-to-speech feature. If he gets tired of holding it, it can read to him. We got our tax refund recently, so I went to Staples at lunch yesterday and grabbed one for him. This is actually a really nifty gadget! Does all kinds of things besides e books! If he decides he doesn't like it, I'll keep it myself. Man, the accessories are where they get ya, though. It doesn't have a backlight, so if you want to read where it's dim, you need a light for it and also a cover to keep it from getting wrecked. It was about the same price for all of them separately or a nice leather cover with an integrated light that actually runs off the Kindle battery ($60). And I suckered for the extended warranty, too. John always tells me they're not worth it, but we're hard on batteries and we're hard on gadgets.

I played around last night, looking for some free James Fenimore Cooper to put on it for him, and also found I could forward Word and PDF documents to it, so I tested that out with the thresher sampling plan proposal I need to make comments on. Pretty cool!

Apropos maybe: Seven Ways Electronic Books Can Make Us Better Readers. by the CEO of Levenger (I like to drool over their pens). I seem to be what he calls a preservationist - but I don't write in my books so much because I can't bear them being marked up, but more because when I'm reading, I'm in an absorbent mode. I might think of questions or notes later, but not usually during.

By way of Dirt du Jour - In Star Trek: Wrath of Khan I think they must have based the Genesis Cave on on this place. If they even knew of its existence then...

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/01/largest-cave/peter-photography

Gorgeous photos! It seems like most of the caves that get coverage lately are the kind people get stuck in, or do dangerous cave diving in, or are filled with awesome giant crystals but are 130° F in, which I prefer to watch other people do, thank you.

Ah, CS Monitor, you have no idea how many physical & mental adolescents (including this one) just started laughing hysterically for no apparent reason upon looking through your paper...despite my fondness for astronomy...

All snickering aside, glad to hear it.

Yes, Yes, Yes! I think I've been saying for years, at least since high school, normal is overrated!

Normal is overrated. Normal is arbitrary and evasive. Nobody is normal; we all bring our own uniqueness to this world that should be appreciated for what it is. A very large portion of the “normal” people I see are anxious and unhappy...

So, to all of you “normal” people out there I say: get over it. Don’t be afraid, and please lose the pity. After you involve yourself with these and other kids with disabilities your life won’t be “normal,” but who needs “normal” anyway? We all need to lose a little “normal.”

http://thinkingautismguide.blogspot.com/2010/08/arbitrary-normality.html

(I would also add to this author - why is normal so highly aspired to? And those of you who think you're normal, and look down on those who you consider "abnormal" or raise eyebrows at those who act or dress a little "wierd"? You're not.)

By the way, this entire blog, The Thinking Person's Guide to Autism, consisting of guests posts by a number of different bloggers on autism (parents, teachers, health care professionals, and especially, autistic people themselves) and eventually to be published as a book, is excellent. I want to send a number of the posts here to everyone I know (well, who doesn't see this here).

(I note the original post of this essay is being jumped all over by Jenny McCarthy's disciples, who don't seem to have actually read the thing.)

( Others I Like on this topic (but there are tons more): )

Wow. This is a fantastic set of blog posts I've been reading in stages over the past week or so. Today, the author was kind enough to make a post with links to all the connected pieces in one place (oh yeah, that's called a Table Of Contents, right). My brother had asked me for stuff to read to help him understand Angus a bit better, and while I've been meaning to sit down and make up a list, I think this is a great place to start. I would encourage reading even if you don't think you know anyone autistic, because chances are, you do, and you (or even they) don't know it.

http://momnos.blogspot.com/2010/03/toast-to-inclusion-autism-education-in.html
(Series of posts linked to in this post is what you want to read)

Angus is not exactly like Bud; he's a couple of years older and fairly good at talking - although he does use some scripts and echolalia, he's not dependent on them. He's in a regular classroom for subjects he's good at (so far, science, social studies and computer lab), and in core classroom for subjects he's not so good at (language arts and math). He's now in middle school where classes in different periods are arranged like this anyway, so he's actually had a headstart on getting used to that. He's had an aide for four hours a day to keep him on track, but his latest IEP plans for aide time to be faded to about half that. He's not on any medication. However, there are quite a few similarities - he gets anxious and frustrated easily, gets very anxious when he realizes an adult he knows is not in view, does not deal easily with sudden changes -i.e. family changing their minds on what movie they're going to watch. He hums a lot (so do I). Loud environments stress him, although he's getting better at that. He definitely needs the movement breaks; we call it gallumphing and he's done it almost since he started walking; the spinny thing is fun, too (hell, I used to do that when I was a kid). His shoes wear out in front first, because he still tends to walk more on his toes. We have never made a big deal out of his issues, which are fairly mild compared to some; he's just Angus to us and quite frankly we had to have them pointed out to us to realize he had them. However, with people who get impatient with him, maybe this will help. I wish I had been creative enough to come up with something like this. I also wish everyone could have the kinds of teachers Bud's seem to be.

I knew this was coming, but the confirmation makes me sad still. I have many pleasant memories of being aboard the MAKO (such as this cruise here, which I need to post some pictures of), some anxious ones as well. This comes after getting our hopes up for the previous year; we were told the MAKO was coming out being mothballed and we were hopefully going to be able to use her to help with NOAA - SWFSC's juvenile shark survey/tagging program. I was rather excited about this as I'd been in charge of similar cruise when I was first hired. Then the whole budget situation collapsed and it turns out the Department can no longer afford her. At least she's going to another state agency which will hopefully make better use of her - the longer a boat is mothballed, the more expensive it is to get her going again.

NOAA's R/V DAVID STARR JORDAN (the one I went out on a couple of summers ago) has also gone away; she's in Seattle now, awaiting replacement by a newer, more fuel-efficient ship.

State Research Vessel Begins Second Life...

Star Trek goes Steampunk...

http://community.livejournal.com/startrek/1042618.html?view=10826426#t10826426

My brother sent me this link - I think I might just have to learn to knit again since what she sells are patterns....

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5162135