So basically the kid is headed toward dropping out of school. This is disturbing, to say the least. We are trying to get her to pay attention to the credit rehabilitation program she is in now, but even this seems to get her down. Frankly, I have no idea wh...

The major benefit I have noticed in producing this freewriting blog is that I want to write more often. This is now my third post of the day, and I am not struggling to find motivation. I have some free time, and so I am drawn to writing. The 500 word goal ...

Sun Ra is one of those musicians you either love or hate. I love most of his music - sometimes it’s a little too sloppy for my taste - but I really dig the person. Sun Ra was one of the primary intellectuals of the Black Arts Movement according to Amiri Bar...

I just created and posted a page with links to my PowerPoint presentations from my American history classes on my GitHub portfolio site. This is a first step in putting my teaching materials online. I should probably also post the syllabi for the classes, b...

I just finally figured out how to use MAMP in order to locally host a content management system (CMS). I just installed a new Drupal site, and now I am faced with learning how to use Drupal. I can’t say it is as intuitive as WordPress, though I’ll bet I can...

I have just spent some time creating test pages for a new portfolio site. I think the vertical scrollspy page is going to be the cleanest. What I need to do with it is clean up the colors and text and begin adding my own content. The question, I think, is w...

I swear, some days my only interaction with the kid is to drive her to her appointments and her friends’ houses. On days like this I feel like my life isn’t my own. I suppose this is a common experience of parenthood, but that doesn’t make me feel any less ...

jQuery is so much easier than JavaScript I wonder what the advantage of full-blown JavaScript is. I know that jQuery is just a subset of JavaScript, but it is so useful it may cover everything I need from JavaScript for now. If I concentrate my efforts on j...

I both love and hate reading the news; I like to stay informed, but the news often pisses me off. Even something as interesting as Sen. Al Franken being interviewed on Comedy Central. The Senator can’t help but act both seriously and funny at the same time,...

Zanaya has been skipping classes at school, talking on her cell phone while in class, and showing up for school without her uniform. I had to take her home, and now I don’t know what she is going to do. We seem to be headed toward her dropping out of school...

I just yelled at VJ on the phone. She is now interested in sending Zanaya to a therapeutic school, while I’m putting my foot down about sending her anywhere else. This is fucked. Every year or so we change the kid’s school, and now she is tired of being mov...

I’m in a writing mood today, so here goes my fourth post for the day. Each post has either approached or surpassed the 500 word mark, so I should have written about 2000 words by the end of this one. Something tells me, as well, that this may not be the las...

I have found a way to embed PowerPoint presentations online using Google Docs. When I open a presentation to view one of the extra options is the embed code. Let me test out whether this will work in Markdown.

Coding is interesting.

So the kid refused to go to school this morning. Essentially, the principal yelled at her yesterday for not wearing a proper uniform. Zanaya got angry, yelled back, and left the school. Now she thinks she can just not go to school. Valerie now wants to move...

Zanaya came home when Valerie offered to take her out for food. It figures food would be the palliative. Food always makes the kid relax. It’s amazing that you can see her in a rotten mood, but just a few bites of food will turn her around almost instantly....

Zanaya apparently left school this morning after the principal confronted her for wearing a non-uniform top. My phone isn’t working today because there is still a hold on my bank account, so I can’t call DOR or the bank to sort this out. Since Zanaya is mis...

Writing for the sake of writing is not all that productive from my point of view. It is always best to have some goals in mind. That being said, I should be able to pump out text on command whether I have goals in mind or not. The trick is to relax and just...

I hate Memorial Day

JavaScript is kicking my ass. I have to say that I don’t really get the algorithmic nature of JavaScript. I can do basic stuff, but anything beyond basic and I am completely lost. I do understand the language better than I used to, but it still evades me, f...