Frances

[Monty]

It's one of the search choices on

http://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/waves/main_int.html

look for animation, latest run, winds

there's lots and lots of choices there, it's a way kewl site

[Mandi]

Thanks . . . way kewl indeed! There's an ongoing friendly competition in our household for who has the best/most recent weather data . . . I win today, whoo-hoo! I'm keeping Deb's weather station in reserve as a secret trump card, too . . .





Why yes, we are actually ALL geeks, every last one of us . . .

[Deb]

I'm keeping Deb's weather station in reserve as a secret trump card, too . . .

LOL! My poor station... I was shocked it survived Charley and we had excellent data coming in!!! Terra got me such a nice station that it was also storing all of the data so it could dump out online after the power returned....but...the power took about 4 hours too long to come back and everything got destroyed leaving the month of August in shambles as far as my station data goes lol.

I've been waiting for August to end so I can try to clear and repopulate the data in one last ditch effort to restore it...I'll be trying that today but my hopes for success are minimul.

Now I'm just waiting to see if Charley's big sister is going to allow me to keep my station or take it away for good. I'm also starting to wonder if the station isn't actually a hurricane magnet

Stay safe out there folks.... it looks like we've got one heck of a holiday weekend ahead of us.

Deb
- Round and round she goes...where she stops nobody knows...

[Mandi]

Round and round she goes...where she stops nobody knows...

A new use for the sound track of the Spin Me Round (homemade) videos, perhaps ?! (I'm adding video editing to our homeschool project/curriculum list this year, just from reading about how much fun you guys obviously are having with it!)

[Deb]

I really shouldn't share these.... I know I shouldn't.... they were "made for grandma and grandpa" type movies....but I can't resist now and it's all your fault Mandi...so if the kids disown me you know why

My son was testing the concept of something he wanted to try for a lil home movie when he made this lil clip ...

http://www.PicOlio.com/Video/DragonClip.wmv

Mind you, there were tomato cages behind the grill that he dove into... several band aides were required lol

And this next one is a "full featured film" with bloopers at the end and everything lol Oddly enough..the bloopers are the best part

http://www.PicOlio.com/Video/Br3akf4st.wmv

Terra about killed us when he saw it though. In reality the pets are NOT ALLOWED to be on the table lol

At any rate...if you want to view...feel free (alert: it's 5 minutes long...so not small at all)

They are both having fun with these projects as well as realizing that even a short silly clip takes a lot more work than they ever imagined with planning and mapping things out. They'll enjoy working in all things required to write a plan/map/story/report/memory skills/team work etc w/o actually having to call it Language Arts

Deb
- Deceptive Educations are the key to unschooling the children at home

[Mandi]

(straying slightly off Frances, but maybe not really . . . )

Could you post links to the equipment that makes up your weather station? I'd really like to see exactly what it entails! (Or maybe make up a picolio post too, if you think that's better.)

[Deb]

Yeah...I'll try to get better descriptions on the weather station site once things chill out a bit. I was EXTREMELY SPOILED with my system.... Terra likes to be extravagant with me (who am I too complain? lol) but we started out by making our own weather station stuff which I STRONGLY recommend for educators. It's fun to do and it will help the kids (as well as adults) understand "how things work" much better.

Just obtaining a pro-built station leaves a great deal of confusion concerning how it's all working but if you've built and monitored your own stuff for a while it becomes clear much faster.

Any google search should lead you to things like "How to make your own rain guage" etc... a good place to begin is with sites like this one: http://www.fi.edu/weather/todo/todo.html

Deb
- If Frances is cruel what's left of mine can be purchased cheap on Ebay

[Monty]

Mandi, glad to give you a leg up on the competition. I have played with that site so much, they are probably going to send me a bandwidth bill.

Wow Deb, Samson is sure growing! Every Easter we spend it with my aunt in Austin who is a full blooded Englishlady. Very proper in every sense of the word, lol. We took our Chihuahua up there last time, and my aunt is in the habit of clearing the dishes after "tea". Imagine the surprise she got when she found Taco finishing off the dishes on the top of her dining room table as she went to clear it. Bad dog! lol.

[Deb]

Wow Deb, Samson is sure growing!

Hehe..in more ways than one He's 60lbs now at 5 months old and was neutered yesterday. This pic was taken last night in the dark...thank goodness for flash ... at any rate..he fought and fought to get his collar off and just as he got it to break loose.... he passed out



We're anything but proper as you know lol but I do prefer not to have fur in my food *g*

At least a lil'one like Taco would be safer here now. Maximus HATED lil'dogs. He simply would not tolerate them....but Samson is showing no problems with them at all. Maybe it's because all of his puppy classes took place with "lil'dog breeds" dunno.... but Taco and Bob's dog Ewok are welcome in our home now lol

Deb
- See Frances...you don't have to be the center of attention all of the time!

[Mandi]

That pic is too funny ! I saw *just* yesterday in one of my animal-obsessed daughter's many vet/pet product catalogs - a collar that looks a lot like a human neck brace. Apparently it prevents turning and biting just as effectively - I'm definately going to try that if we ever need one again.

Our Lily (85 pound Chessie mix) had a leg infection last spring, and had to do the E-collar thing (back in Alaska.) It's not just pathetic . . . it was dangerous - she would fly up behind us, not realizing she was MUCH wider than usual, and kneecap us from behind, buckling even my husband's sturdy legs. It happened to me for the *last* time on the stairs (scary) and so I learned to just keep her in front of me for that. She was CONSTANTLY smacking the edges of everything with that stupid cone. She had a setback and had to be coned a second time . . . she saw it in my hands, leaving the vet and walked as s-l-o-w-l-y as possible back to the car, without actually moving in the opposite direction - it was pretty funny, how naked their doggie emotions are.

I hate E-collar time . . . I mean, there's no way around collaring an animal that is going to fuss at any owie, it's for their own good, but I dread it as much as they do. Hope Samson is all healed up soon!